Safe Haven
by LaurieQ
Summary: It's never supposed to be Laura... Frank, Joe, Fenton have all come to terms with risk, but not for her... and it's going to be one very long trip to Chicago. A little turkey, a little stuffing, and a lot of prayer that Hardys past and present make it to the table this year. About a year after Do You See What I See and another tale migrating from HDA
1. Chapter 1

**_Author's Name:_** Laurie Q ** _  
_**  
 ** _Title of Story:_** Safe Haven ** _  
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 ** _Type of Story:_** Casefile, Holiday ** _  
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 ** _Rating of Story:_** T ** _  
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 ** _Characters in Story:_** F, J, Fe, L, OCs ** _  
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 ** _Warnings:_** Reference to prior child abuse, not depicted in story ** _  
_**  
 ** _Date Story Originally Posted:_** December, 2011 _ **  
**_  
 ** _Author's note:_** A little turkey, a little stuffing…. A little prayer that everybody makes it to the table in one piece… Gathering the family for Thanksgiving, then and now, reminds the Hardys that they are thankful for far more than pie. Another story making the transfer from the HDA. Angst and a Laura Hardy history lesson, as well as a bit of why my grown up Frank and Joe become, well, who they are

The younger Joe in the tale is based off a very real young man that I've had the privilege to know as one of my son's close friends and I admire his bravery in daring to trust others and be happy in spite of a rough introduction to this world. The similarities to his life are used with permission - and yes, he really did that with the mantle and clock - you'll see what I mean...

Thank you to all those who have been supportive of my initial postings here on FFN, it means the world to me!

I also want to extend a special thank you to Dawn for serving the invaluable role of beta on this, quite some time ago..

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 **CHAPTER 1**

"Can you get that, Joe? I've sort of got my hands full!"

Joe shifted the third bag of groceries he was lugging from his right arm to his left, quickly bending his knee for balance as he felt everything slipping. He called out to his year older brother just as he reached for the ringing phone. "Sure, Frank, no problem. Not like I'm carrying anything...What is it you're carrying in, again? Cotton candy and rice cakes or something probably... don't strain yourself... You handed me fifty pounds of crud, by the way, but hey why not? I live to be your pack mule... Hardy residence, hello?"

"Hi, Joe." The amused voice coming through the phone line clearly indicated that more of that than 'hello' had been heard. "You and Frank doing ok?"

"Yeah, Dad, fine." Joe balanced the tip of his toe on the edge of the third step, resting the paper sacks on the impromptu shelf of his thigh. "What time are you going to be home?"

Private investigator Fenton Hardy paused a moment, presumably checking his watch, before answering his younger son. "I'm in Atlanta now, but I've got a five hour layover. I should be home by eight tonight, assuming everything runs more or less on time."

Joe laughed. "Like to see that happen the day before Thanksgiving."

Fenton's smile could almost be heard over the phone. "It doesn't hurt to ask for a holiday miracle now and then. Did you and your brother find everything on your mother's shopping list?"

"Frank spent about an hour looking for something called Durkee French fried onion rings, but yeah... eventually." Joe hesitated, then decided to come clean. "Ah, can you actually tell the difference between light and dark pitted canned cherries? 'Cause I might have fudged on that one a little."

"I'm sure your mother will forgive you, Joe." Fenton chuckled. "You could always put them in the back of the lazy susan and play dumb."

"Think that'll work?"

"Didn't when I tried it year before last."

Joe pondered that. "Ok, then. I'm going with Frank did it."

"Be nice to your brother."

"Hey, I am! I got the phone like he told me to, didn't I?" Joe managed to sound appropriately indignant.

"Are you implying that talking to me is an imposition, Joseph?"

"Ah, no, see... I, uh... my hands are every bit as full as his and... umm..." Joe stammered as he backtracked, finally bailed out by the ring of his father's laughter.

"It's ok, I heard you when you grabbed the phone. Anyway, I called Laura this morning and she'll be home around six. Make sure you pick her up at the airport; she's on Trans-American flight 4462."

"We will Dad. See you when you get here."

"See you tonight, Joe."

"Bye Dad."

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"It doesn't have to be perfect, Beth." Benjamin McCullough pulled his wife to his chest, stilling the slim fingers that restlessly skirted over everything on the table. He kissed her forehead, waiting until he felt the tension seep from her shoulders.

"I know." The tiny brunette looked up at him with nearly jet eyes, her deep chocolate locks pulled into a sleek ponytail while she worked. It made her look younger than her thirty eight years. "I just want them to enjoy it here."

"They'll have fun whether the flowers in the centerpiece are perfect or not." Benjamin kissed her again, then led her from the dining room. He perched on the arm of the overstuffed sofa in the living room, hoping she'd sit as well. A sad smile graced his face when she didn't. "It will be fine, honey."

"It's our first chance, though. I want the children to be happy, and I also want Mr. Alston to be happy." She dropped her chin, staring at the perfect chestnut pleats of her skirt. "That sounds awful, doesn't it? As long as the children have a good time, I shouldn't be thinking about anything else."

"It's not awful to want some happiness for yourself, Beth." Benjamin sighed at the wistful expression on her face. He was blessed with a beautiful wife, a fine home, and a career that was both lucrative and enjoyable. While not precisely rich, he'd always provided Beth with everything she really wanted, until a few years ago. Since then, it had become increasingly clear that the one thing Beth truly desired wasn't a thing at all. She desperately wanted a child, and if he was honest with himself, so did he; but no amount of wanting, or hoping, or praying had filled the nursery at the end of the hall.

Beth slid into her husband's lap, dropping her head to his shoulder. "Maybe not."

The phone rang, interrupting her doubts. She glanced at the caller ID before handing the phone to her husband. Somehow she didn't feel like speaking with the county's adoption coordinator right now.

"Mr. Alston, hello." Benjamin's greeting was cordial, although he was hoping Beth wasn't about to be disappointed. While they were likely a year away from adopting an infant of their own, they'd agreed on two girls living in the Montgomery Home for Children spending Thanksgiving with them. Todd Alston wanted every child in the county's care to spend the holiday break in a real home, and he had recruited every prospective adoptive parent to bring that hope to fruition.

"No, a third child wouldn't be a problem." Ben raised an inquiring eyebrow at Beth, who quickly nodded. "Yes, that's fine... How much younger?... No, I don't see any trouble with that... You remember that we're going to a cabin for the weekend, right?... We could stay here... Oh, that's good then... We'll see Mary in a half-hour... Alright... Goodbye."

Beth smiled broadly, the momentary apprehension that something had fallen through gone. "I take it we're having another guest?"

"Yes. The girls we were expecting are going to go to another family that couldn't accommodate three kids. Todd is sending us three children that were in foster care until yesterday. Apparently something went wrong and they ended up back at the county home."

"Something like what?" Beth wondered who would turn kids out the day before a holiday, but any number of circumstances could have arisen, she supposed. She ran through the one sided conversation again in her head, realizing the cabin wasn't stocked for an infant. "And how much younger?"

Ben chuckled, having had the same thought. "All he said was that foster parents had a medical issue of some sort and the youngest one is four. No need to run out for diapers."

"Well, that should work out fine, then." Beth was halfway back to the kitchen, packing another snack bag for the hour's drive to her parent's woodland cabin, not that snacking right after Thanksgiving dinner was terribly likely. By the time the doorbell rang twenty-five minutes later, she'd readjusted everything on the table seven times. Possibly eight.

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"Frank?... Frank?... Frank!?" Joe shouted up the stairs, struggling to make himself heard over the football game on TV. "Frank?! Can you hear me?!"

A brunette head peered over the railing from the upper hallway. "Be darned hard not to, Joe. What are you bellowing about?"

"I'm not bellowing."

"You are."

"Not my fault that you're old and deaf so I have to shout. Anyway, I asked if you saw that last catch. This game was ninety nine percent over, and now Virginia Tech's right back in it. That was an awesome throw!" Joe grinned as he mimicked a perfect spiral toss, the prospects for his current favorite team looking up.

Frank faked a bewildered frown. "You do know that having a cousin that goes there doesn't obligate you to root for a team that calls itself the Hokies, right? What the heck is a Hokie, anyhow?"

"It's a gobbler, as you well know from the last thirty seven times you asked me that. What exactly is your problem with the Hokies?" Joe knew he was being goaded on purpose, but didn't care.

"I don't have a problem." Frank smirked, coming about halfway down the steps. "Just saying, Thanksgiving weekend may not be the best time to declare yourself a giant turkey..."

Joe responded to the jibe in the mature fashion known to teenage boys everywhere. He stuck his tongue out as far as he could while lobbing a sofa cushion at his brother.

Frank caught it one handed and launched it back over the stair railing with a laugh before darting back up the steps.

"Hey! I thought you were going to come down and watch the game." Joe gestured vaguely at the still blaring TV.

"I will in a bit. I'm just going to finish off proof reading this essay so I don't have to think about it the whole school break." Frank called over his shoulder as he retreated back to his bedroom. He glanced at the photo frames on the wall over the banister, convinced they were vibrating with the sound waves. "Besides, it's not like I can't listen to it from here. Blasting it will not make it seem like you're actually there, you know, and I'm not sure we have earthquake insurance."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever..." Joe retrieved the cushion and tucked it under his arm, pondering how much of the haul from the grocery store he could eat before anyone noticed. A couple of apples, two touchdowns, a field goal, and a bowl of ice cream later, his attention was once more completely riveted to the television.

"Frank! You have got to come down here!" Joe's call followed a dramatic groan. "UVA got a safety. Who the heck gets a safety!? They're killing me down here... Frank!? Are you coming?"

"Yeah, I just need a few more minutes. The fifth paragraph of this still reads like slop..." Frank's voice trailed off as his focus shifted back to comparing and contrasting the thought of Rousseau and Locke.

"You said that an hour ago! Quit being a geek and come watch the game." Somehow geek came across as affectionate.

"I'll get done faster without interruptions, and I want to be able to watch all the important games tomorrow. The ones that don't involve giant turkeys." Frank's tone was primarily amused, but a faint hint of exasperation was sneaking in. It wasn't like he _wanted_ to work on an essay. Unlike Joe, he simply didn't think the best time to start his over-the-school-break assignments was Sunday night at ten p.m.

"Fine, be that way." Joe wandered back through the kitchen, commandeering a few ginger snaps. "It's a really good game though."

Half time ended and the third quarter was well underway when another yell went up the stairs.

"Frank! FRANK! Get down here!"

Frank scraped his chair backward over the hardwood floor of his room and headed for the stair railing again, his patience worn thin. "For goodness sake, Joe, I said I would be down as soon as I finished this! Now leave me alone and-" He never completed the thought.

"NO! FRANK! GET DOWN HERE NOW!"

Frank darted down the stairs, only to freeze at the bottom. Joe stood chalk white in front of the television, the game gone, replaced by the drone of a news anchor.

 _"Trans-American Flight 4462 has crashed on takeoff at Chicago's O'Hare airport. One hundred and twenty four passengers and crew were aboard..."_

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 _To be continued..._

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So, let me know what you think... unless you're not a Hokie fan, of course, in which case I don't need to know that part!


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2**

The boy stood on the front porch, immobile body at odds with a rapidly travelling gaze that urgently catalogued details. Patterned granite tiles underfoot, nine glazed terracotta pots in various sizes displaying an array of miniature evergreens and hollies, pewter carriage lights flanking a paneled burgundy door, ornate scrollwork around a doorbell, natural grey stacked-stone walls extending from the oversize front door to elegant bay windows to either side. It looked nice. It always _looked_ nice.

Ms. Mary Something-Or-Other stood beside him, an unwanted manicured hand on his shoulder. He'd met her an hour ago and would never see her again in another five minutes. Someone else to hand him off at her earliest opportunity; to congratulate herself on her good deed for the day, oblivious to the guarded anxiety radiating from the child. Must be convenient to ignore what's right in front of you in favor of patting yourself on the back, but maybe he wasn't being fair. Maybe he was just bitter. Maybe she was just gullible. Maybe it just didn't matter anymore. The knob turned and he quickly dropped his eyes to the ground.

"Hello, you must be Mary Schertz." A tall, dark haired man extended his hand. "I'm Benjamin McCullough and this is my wife, Beth. Come in."

The blonde child followed the trio of adults, constantly adjusting his stance to block access to a pair of smaller girls behind him. The taller of the two peeked around his elbow, while the shorter twisted a tiny hand in the ragged flannel hem of his shirt. He watched through lowered lashes as the stout woman wafted a sheaf of papers at the couple in front of him, smiling and wishing them happy holidays as soon as the man scrawled a signature on the last page. She waved at the children and left. The youth's breathing sped up, realizing he'd been signed over as delivered to his destination, no different from a package from UPS. His attention shifted to the other woman as the door clicked shut behind him.

"I'm Beth McCullough. Mary didn't tell me your names?" She leaned down, coming closer to the children's heights; and while the words were a statement, her tone was clearly a question. She reached tentative fingers out to tuck a strand of honey blond hair behind the ear of the older girl, withdrawing it when the boy frowned. The girl, however, risked a timid smile.

"I'm Amy. We're going to stay with you?" The child was perhaps seven, with water blue eyes and slightly tangled hair that grazed her waist.

"That's right, honey; until Sunday." Beth motioned toward the cinnamon colored sofa. "Why don't all of you have a seat?"

Amy tugged her sister toward the offered couch, snuggling into the warm cushions. Her light coat hadn't offered much protection against the snow-bitten afternoon.

The moment hung, awkward, until Benjamin picked up the duffle bag from the living room floor and placed it back by the door. "Did Ms. Schertz tell you we're all going to a cabin for the weekend? I think you'll like it. We're eating Thanksgiving dinner first though, and I for one am hungry. Anybody else ready? Amy?"

"Is there pie?" A tiny hopeful voice snuck out from where the smallest child had crammed herself between her brother and the couch arm. She was an echo of her middle sibling in appearance, down to the matching purple corduroy jumper.

"Laura! You can't ask for pie. It's _ru-uude_." Amy smirked at her sister, finally sounding like a little kid.

Beth and Benjamin relaxed at the cross eyed, tongue out face that followed, each of the girls reaching around their older brother to playfully swat at the other. Benjamin answered the query with a warm smile, extending a hand to Laura. "There _is_ pie, pumpkin, rhubarb, and apple, but why don't we try to get through a little turkey and sweet potatoes first?"

"Um, okay." Laura avoided Benjamin's grasp after a quick glance at her brother, but offered the man a giggle. "But I like pie better."

Benjamin winked, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "I do too."

The five of them sat around a carefully prepared feast, the McCulloughs noticing but not commenting when the older boy herded his sisters to the opposite side of the table, careful to sit between Benjamin and the girls. The child seemed wary and protective rather than impolite. He'd spoken softly to Laura and Amy a time or two, too low for his hosts to clearly hear, and hadn't directly looked at either of the adults.

"You know," Benjamin tilted his chair slightly toward the sandy blonde boy, finding what he hoped was his friendliest voice, "I think I'm just going to have to come out and ask. What's your name?"

A fork clanked faintly as the youth lowered it to his plate, a slow deliberate motion before he raised the bluest eyes Ben had ever seen. The sapphire irises might have been beautiful, had the left one not been markedly bloodshot, a deep purple-black smudge ringing the long blonde lashes and extending beneath a fringe of bangs.

"Joe. My name is Joe."

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"No." Joe stumbled, recoiling from the relentless reporter on the screen. "No. Not Mom. N-No. Not her plane. No... No."

Frank sank to the bottom step, boneless, staring blankly at the floor. "That flight? They're sure?" In spite of the summons, his brother didn't seem to realize he was there. "Joe? ...Joe? What exactly did they say? JOE?"

"Takeoff. It crashed on takeoff; an engine fire." The younger Hardy's voice broke on the last word, descending into a disjointed tremble. "Mom's not... we need to... she's not... Frank?"

"Dad. We need to call Dad." Frank fumbled for the phone, fingers missing the buttons on his first several tries. Some posterior segment of his mind thawed enough to begin a futile search for the words to tell his father before conceding that they didn't exist.

"Hello?" Fenton's raw rasp made it clear he already knew. "Frank? Joe?"

"It's Frank. Dad, Mom's plane-"

"I know, son, I... know. Joe's there?" The collective intelligence of the Hardy males reduced itself to stuttered, broken phrases.

"He's here... Mom... Do you know if... If she's..." Frank choked down something that sounded suspiciously like fear.

"Frank, wait. There are survivors. That's all I know." Fenton wrapped his whitened knuckles tighter around the phone, needing to be at home with his sons... in Chicago with his wife... anywhere but miserably alone in the Atlanta airport.

"Survivors? Mom's ok?"

Joe zeroed in on the word ok, lurching at the phone. He stabbed at the speaker button on the hand set, suddenly willing to hear the conversation. "She's alright?"

The exhaled breath over the phone wavered. "I don't know. A Chicago PD friend called me when he saw Laura's name on the passenger list. There are trapped voices in the fuselage on the runway."

"We have to get to Chicago." Frank was starting to pull himself together, varnishing a cobbled layer of hope and denial over gnawing dread. "I'll get our stuff. Joe, you call the -"

"Frank! Wait." Fenton cut through the rapid fire planning. "No flights are going into Chicago. Right now, no commercial flights are going anywhere." Like his son, he preferred a certain amount of reality avoidance right now and shifting into practical detail mode facilitated the veneer.

"What? But..." There were other airports in the area. Frank knew that.

"They have to be sure it was an accident. Crowded airport, holiday weekend... it's a target." The detective opted not to elaborate on that nauseating line of thought.

"A private plane?" Joe still sounded stunned.

"Police and federal planes only." Fenton was as anxious to be in Chicago as his sons, but there didn't seem to be an immediate solution. "I'm going to rent a car before there aren't any."

"We'll start driving too... She's one of the survivors... she's... right?" Frank didn't particularly sound two weeks past eighteen at the moment.

"We have to believe that." Fenton swallowed hard, squelching any thoughts that didn't involve a living, breathing Laura. Frank and Joe didn't need a frantic, distraught husband; they needed the comfort of a reassuring father. "Don't drive anywhere, Frank. The airline... the first place they'll call is the house. Stay there."

"But..."

"No buts. Someone has to stay there."

Frank reluctantly nodded. "You're right. Call every two hours?"

The bi-hourly calls were a long established part of a family crisis protocol. One that Fenton regretted ever needing to establish. "Of course. Boys?"

"Yeah, Dad?" Only Frank answered.

"This is going to be ok. I love you." The words cracked, Fenton's brain abruptly acknowledging that it had been years since he routinely said I love you when hanging up the phone with his sons. It wasn't any less true than when they were toddlers. Surely that was only a few months ago?

"Love you too, Dad." Frank ended the call, standing in the center of the room, phone in hand, lost. A sharp gasp from Joe dragged him back to awareness.

Frank's eyes followed Joe's to the now flickering orange glow of the television. The flicker transformed into an oily black and orange inferno as the posterior fuselage disappeared within flames that suddenly licked skyward, the surrounding rescue crews decimated like so many roasted ants.

 _"Oh my God..."_ Neither brother knew which one of them spoke. It didn't matter.

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to be continued...


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:** Thank you so much to Cherylann Rivers and Erin Jordan for your reviews, it's keeping me moving on the new story I'm working on as well as posting this one!

 **CHAPTER 3**

Smoke. Black greasy coils of it, slinking amongst smoldering seats and twisted bulkheads scattered like the dollhouse of a disgruntled toddler. A pervasive, roiling stench coated the debris, choking the crackling flames that had produced it; invading the few bodies that had as of yet refused to submit, leaving them gasping, grotesque fish. A fraction of the forms stirred, drawing the sickening heat into charred lungs. The majority remained still, their crisping flesh one more obstacle between the ever growing fire and the elusive freedom of cold air. The burning remnants of a jet airliner and a dozen rescue vehicles spewed flame, heat, darkness, and despair skyward from within a perimeter that surely enclosed one of Dante's circles.

 _A little further left..._ Laura groped out blindly, her hand closing around jagged metal that seared into her palm. An overwhelming wall of sound encroached on the sliver of space around her; groaning metal, the roar of the flames, an occasional shriek, and far distant sirens all competing to assault her ears. She was flat on her stomach, a slab of some sort angled a few feet above her head, making getting even to her knees an impossibility. One arm length at a time she pulled herself hand over hand along the floor, rerouting around each unseen roadblock as she collided with it. The fire fought her for every inch, tempting her with surrender into the darkness. She knew if she'd been alone she would have yielded to that escape already, but she wasn't. Not really. Not as long as her husband and sons were waiting for her at home.

Another inch. The floor was getting hotter, forcing Laura to increase the speed of her slither, ignoring the embers and fragments that bit into her skin. The largest intact section of the aircraft was also the main source of the inferno, that wreckage dozens of yards from the smaller segment where she struggled for air.

Her nose bumped against something again, the textured surface interrupted regularly by smooth ovals. Although it was curving below her body, she was certain that it was the upper section of the plane, some of the windows oddly intact. She trailed both hands over the wall with increasing urgency, unable to find a way around. Eventually the seeking quest of her fingertips gave way to pounding fists and tears. There wasn't any place else to go.

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"Hmm. I love it up here when it snows." Beth McCullough stretched her arms backward over the headrest of her seat, gazing out the windshield at the white tipped pines and pristine mountain vistas. Something about snow always looked so new and clean. Heck, it even smelled clean.

"Which is precisely why we're here." Benjamin laughed, amused as always at how much his supposedly adult spouse enjoyed every aspect of playing in a winter wonderland. He opened his car door, shaking his shoulders in a dramatic shudder. "Awfully cold for November, though. Let's get inside and I'll get a fire going before we bring in the luggage."

Beth nodded, glancing into the backseat. The girls were both slack jawed in slumber, Amy resting against the window and Laura leaning as far into her brother as her car seat allowed. Joe, however, was predictably awake; watching. "Do you want to wake your sisters up?"

"Ok." His face seemed to have so much more to say than that, but he settled for the single word. Amy piled out of the car, giggling when she sank nearly to her knees the second she stepped off the gravel roadway. Joe stared at that for a moment and opted to piggyback Laura, the preschooler's feet dangling against the back of his knees.

"I can carry her, if you want." Beth held her hands out, but didn't step toward him. Whoever had given the child that black eye had left him with a more than understandable wariness. She wasn't surprised when he shook his head. "Have you ever played in the snow, Joe? We have some sleds, heavier coats, even some skis if you want to try."

"Maybe, ma'am." Joe slid Laura off his shoulders onto the wide planks of the cabin porch, steadying her when she took a drowsy lurch. He gave Beth a long appraising look before taking a deep breath and lowering the armor a notch. "I made a snowman once."

Beth jumped on the opening, hoping to finally start a conversation with the boy. She was aware of Ben in the periphery, toting wood in through the backdoor and giving her some room to talk to the children. "Did you make him very tall? I can never get the balls rolled big enough to go more than two snowballs high, so mine always come out sort of stunted."

"The snow here is too dry." Joe kicked a toe at the powdery stuff.

Beth waited to see if he would elaborate, then spoke when he didn't. "What do you mean?"

"It's not sticky. Warmer snow is sticky."

While warm snow sounded odd, Beth knew what he meant. The larger, heavy snowflakes that fell when it was thirty degrees or so did make better clumps. "We get that sometimes. This powder is nice for skiing, though."

Joe stopped Amy's exploration of the side woods with a glance, fingers barely twitching and yet still communicating for her to stay close before he answered Beth. "I've never tried skis."

"I'll show you in the morning if you want. You said the snow here. Did you build your snowman somewhere far away?"

"No, ma'am. I meant exactly right here. We've always lived close by, but this is our first trip up into the mountains." Joe paused to calculate the distance to his sisters, discovering Amy and Laura had both plopped down on their backs, arms and legs scissoring to make snow angels. Before he could stop it an univited grin snuck across his face. "They didn't get to help with the snowman, they weren't old enough. Maybe we should do that tomorrow."

"But it snowed a lot last year-"

Joe interrupted her, the smile gone. "Last year we were with a different family. No snowmen."

He scooped Laura out of the snow and beckoned to Amy, abruptly ushering them both just inside the door.

By the time Beth caught up, all three of them were out of their shoes and Joe had his outer shirt off, scrubbing the melting sludge off the floor. "Joe? Sweetie? You don't have to do that. This floor's seen a lot worse than a few drips."

She took a chance, taking the shirt from his hand and helping him up. His arm instantly tensed under her hand, but he didn't pull free. "I'm sorry if I said the wrong thing. You don't have to tell me, but have you lived with a lot of families?"

Joe shrugged slightly, his answer bleakly matter of fact. "Four if you count our folks. The first foster family was great, the next one sort of so-so. This last one and our parents, not so good."

"Is that what happened to your eye?"

His fingers brushed against the puffy bruise before he looked pointedly from Beth to his sisters and back again. "I fell."

"I see." And she did. The girls didn't know what had happened, or at least not all of it. "So how about Amy and Laura? Do they fall much?"

"Not if I'm around. I'm clumsy enough for all of us."

Amy glanced up, her six year old face older. "You aren't clumsy, Joey."

The shrug again. "When I need to be, I am." A noise at the door stiffened his spine, the guarded shield again in his eyes.

Benjamin walked in with the bags, suddenly aware he'd shut down a conversation Joe needed to have, but it was too late to go back outside now. "Everybody ready to get some sleep? I hate to say it Joe, but Beth and I were expecting all girls for this little venture, so we'll have to figure out some sleeping arrangements. There's a double bed and a double trundle in the loft and two twins down here. How about Laura and Amy sharing the trundle, Beth can have the double, and you and I will take the twin beds?"

Joe ran through the permutations in a matter of seconds. He was perfectly comfortable sharing a room with his sisters, especially since he'd have the treat of his own bed, and almost spoke up to suggest that. Children upstairs, grownups down. The loft was open, though, the front side a mere rail, and therefore it had no door to lock. If he stayed down here, then maybe Mr. McCullough would have no reason to climb those stairs. Beth would be with the girls and there didn't seem to be a way around that, but she was definitely the lesser threat. Besides, Amy knew to scream bloody murder if anyone came near them.

"Yes sir, that's fine." Joe picked up his bag and walked toward the bedroom, his breath darting more with every step.

Amy noticed, more aware of the last few years than her elder sibling realized. She plucked at his sleeve to stop him. "We could all sleep in here by the fire. Maybe there are sleeping bags or something?"

"I'll be fine, Amy." The ten year old squared his shoulders, resigned. "It's just another night. I'll be fine."

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"Hey, Finn, look right there!" The firefighter pointed leftward, his bulky protective gloves decreasing the accuracy of gesture. "Do you see that?"

His partner hesitated, his flashlight feebly searching the cloying smoke. Finally he nodded and plowed forward, the visible patch of flesh resolving into a slim hand as he got closer. It was a woman's hand, soot and scrapes almost blending in with the surrounding trash, but the light beam glinted off a diamond band. He knelt, shaking his head at the amount of debris they'd need to shift to extract the body. Most of the plane's passengers were in the larger segment of the wreckage and would never be recovered at all. The heat there was simply too intense for even bones to survive. Here along the edges of a debris field that stretched a half mile, the rescue workers were still removing a scant number of corpses and an even smaller number of survivors, many of those their own coworkers injured in the secondary explosions. He stripped out of a glove and wrapped his fingers around the abraded wrist. "Mike! Get some more help! She's alive!"

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"Hardy residence." Joe held his breath and willed his stomach to stop an uncontrolled plummet to his toes, the Chicago area code blinking at him from the caller ID. "Yes... she's my mother."

Frank charged into the room, skidding to a stop when he saw his brother already clutching the phone. Joe's face looked intensely anxious, not devastated nor relieved. He didn't know anything yet.

"Is she ok?... No, that would be my father... Fenton Hardy. He's on his way to Chicago by car... Yes, he's aware of that..." Joe paced in a tight circle, clammy palm repetitively swiping over the denim of his jeans.

Frank tried to piece the conversation together from Joe's half, mouthing questions at him at a frantic rate. "Who's that? Is Mom ok? What are they saying? Are there more survivors? Joe?"

Joe turned his back, shutting out everything but the male voice on the phone. "No, I'm not. Please, if you could... I know, but... my brother's here, he's eighteen, maybe you could... She's my mother, please, if you can tell me anything... Of course... I understand... It's 631-555-4363..." He dropped the phone to the foyer table, spreading both hands flat on the cool wood, head hunched between broad shoulders.

"Joe?" Frank raised a tentative hand to his brother's arm, unnerved by the long silence. "They didn't tell you anything, right? Joe?"

His sibling shrugged away from the contact, mindlessly wandering to the couch. He stared at it, his mental processes taking some time to recall what it was for. Eventually he sank into the cushions, knees tucked up under his chin. "Only that they had 'significant news' regarding Mom and could only notify whomever was legally responsible for her. ...Frank? Is that a polite way of asking for next of kin? 'Cause I don't think I can stand it if Mom's... if..."

"We can't know that." Frank sat as well, hiding his face in his hands for long seconds before meeting Joe's eyes. "We wait. Give him time to call Dad."

The next twenty minutes crawled at a glacial rate, transforming the scene in the room to stone. Both brothers stared at the continued rescue efforts on TV, not really seeing anything. At the top of the hour they pounced on the phone by unspoken agreement, but the sound that met their ears only served to crank their anxieties higher. The tiniest snippet of hello could be heard before static drowned out their father's exhausted voice. Repeat attempts fifteen and thirty minutes later were no better.

The mantle clock ticked, the TV screen flickered, the last of the sunlight filtering through the bay window slid away; neither brother able to combat a growing numb silence. The words of the news anchor had long since congealed into a meaningless drone, so Joe almost missed it when a number of names began to scroll up the screen.

"Wait, turn it back up." Joe tapped Frank on the hand when he didn't respond.

Frank glanced at the remote curled in his fingers, vaguely surprised to find it there, before adjusting the volume.

 _"...Again, the Chicago Police Department and the FAA have issued a joint statement. While twenty two passengers have been confirmed dead, their names are not being released at this time. An additional eighty seven passengers, crew, and rescue workers are presumed dead, although the remains have not yet been identified. Fourteen passengers and one flight attendant have now been extracted from the wreckage and are being transported to area hospitals. Reports of their injuries range from minor to life threatening and we will provide additional information as we receive it. While the names of all of the survivors are not yet available, we are able to release this partial list as their families have been notified..."_

 _Samuel McInnis_

 _Dillon Tucker_

 _Melissa Chilton Tucker_

 _Anthony Tucker_

 _Jacob Kohler_

 _Eve Rabindrin Mayfield_

 _Felicia Dzeren_

 _Laura McCullough Hardy_

 _Viktor Rivis_

 _#####_

 _#####_

 _to be continued..._


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER 4**

The rustling of muslin sheets and a thick hand-stitched quilt preceded the creaking bedsprings by half a yawn as Benjamin rolled over... again. The light from the waning moon on the snow outside was brighter than might be expected; the icy starlight starkly intrusive through the oiled paper of the window shade. The fire in the main room had died down somewhat, the rosy glow of the hearth still visible through the cracked door, but no longer accompanied by a hiss or crackle, and a chill now pervaded the room. Tucking the blanket up further around his ears took care of that well enough. The old mattress sported more than a few lumps to battle, too. None of that, however, was the source of Ben's insomnia.

A staccato whistle of air raced in and out of the slim form on the other bed, the rapid tempo clanging out an announcement that Joe was awake in a tense Morse code. The child was lying on his back in the precise center of the mattress, arms and legs rigid in a nervous parody of military attention. Benjamin might be spending his first night as a pseudo-parent, but he wasn't having any difficulty recognizing the fear wafting across the three feet between them.

"Joe, you awake? Having trouble sleeping?" There wasn't any doubt, but Ben had to start somewhere.

"Wh-what? Ah, no sir." A noisy gulp crossed the space. "Er, I mean yes sir, I'm awake, but I'm fine. I'm sorry if I'm keeping you up."

"You're not." Great, lie to the kid... Surely there was something he could say right about now... Too bad he didn't have the vaguest idea what it might be... Hey, maybe... "You know why we can't sleep?"

"No, sir." The darting breaths were getting faster, if anything.

"It's this bedroom. We're supposed to be camping for the weekend, right?" Ben rolled up to sit on the edge of his bed, each hand clasping a sweatpants clad knee.

"Yeah, I guess so." Joe scooted closer to the opposite wall.

"Exactly! But instead, we're in here in beds with blankets and lacy curtains and a roof and plaid slippers." Ben made a disdainful hand-wave at the cozy room as if it were suddenly repugnant, lurching to his feet. "This is fine for the girls, maybe; but you and I are men! We need to sleep under the stars! We need tents and bedrolls and a fire and... and... and... uh... beef jerky! Hop up."

Joe slipped out of bed, spine pressing into the wood planked wall behind him.

Ben was aware that the boy was still nervous, but plowed onward. Quickly stripping the spreads off both beds, he piled them into Joe's arms. "Come on."

Joe followed silently, chin pressing down on the quilts so he could see over the mound.

Ben pulled the ladder-back chairs away from a small kitchen table, spacing them to form a roughly eight foot square in the center of the cabin's main room. A rummage through Beth's junk drawer produced scotch tape, string, a notebook, and scissors, all of which were deposited on the hearth. He crossed the room again, snagging the tail of one of the blankets and then rapidly taking a step backward from the shivering youth before him. "Give me a hand, Joe, ok?"

"Yes sir." Joe let a deep breath shudder through his frame before admitting he didn't know what to do. "Umm, how?"

A soft chuckle was quickly suppressed; Ben aware it wouldn't be appreciated at present. "Spread your end of the quilts over the two chairs over there and I'll drape mine over these two. It should make a decent tent."

A few minutes later the campsite was well established. The tent might be a bit colorful, built as it was from four sunshine yellow chairs, a double wedding ring quilt pieced from various blue calico fabrics, and a pastel hued little Dutch girl spread. That didn't matter to Ben, though. Joe seemed to be calming, still obviously vigilant, but no longer approaching hyperventilation.

"I'll stir the fire up and throw on some more wood." Ben gripped the poker and started to do just that. "Why don't you cut some stars out of that notebook?"

Joe nodded, bewildered, and picked up the scissors. Five minutes later, he was finishing a third batch, having found he could gnaw through four sheets of paper at a time, while Ben stood on the kitchen stool, taping the stars to the ceiling with short bits of twine.

"How about some snowflakes, too?"

"Yes sir, I can do that." Half the sentence was lost in an exhausted stretch.

"What on earth?" A drowsy looking Beth stumbled into the room, strands of dark hair streaming into her eyes. She scratched her fingers through it, frowning when that failed to produce a semblance of order.

"We couldn't sleep, so we decided to do some real camping." Ben smiled brightly down from his perch, one hand pressed against the timbered ceiling. "Grab those sleeping bags out of the closet, will ya?"

Beth blinked slowly, patiently waiting for the strange dream to dissipate. When it didn't she shrugged and nodded. "Sure. You know it's one o'clock in the morning, right?"

"All the more reason to roll out some beds, then." Ben hopped down and started to help her, whispering softly once he was close by. "He's scared of me."

Beth's acknowledgment was a tiny nod anyone who hadn't been married to her for a decade and a half would have missed. "Well, if you two are camping I don't see any reason to leave us girls out. Roll out two more spots and I'll carry Laura and Amy down."

"I'll get them." Joe's offer was a hair too quick for simple helpfulness.

Beth looked at the steep open steps to the loft and shook her head. "I really don't want you to trip, Joe. Laura's tiny. How about I carry Amy and you just bring Laura?"

"I can handle Amy, too. I won't fall, ma'am, I promise." Joe swept a pleading gaze from one McCullough to the other.

Frigid air swirled into the cabin as Ben opened the front door. "I think I'll bring in another load of wood from the shed. We might run out before sunrise."

Beth waited for the door to click closed, wordlessly thanking her spouse. "I really think I should carry Amy."

Joe gazed at the closed door and reluctantly nodded, clearly more comfortable without Benjamin. "Ok."

A half hour later all five of them had snuggled into down sleeping bags beneath the quilt canopy, paper stars waving softly overhead. Five empty cocoa mugs sat in a row before the fire, a sticky rim of marshmallow crème circling each one. Slow even breaths emanated from four of the bodies.

The fifth one stirred slightly, smiling at his wife and the slumbering children. "At least he didn't remember to ask me for any beef jerky."

#####

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 _Riing... Riiingg... Riiiiiiiiinnnnggggg..._

Frank and Joe both made it to the foyer half way through the first ring of the phone, hands hovering over it as they glanced at one another. Amazing exactly how afraid you can be of a plastic object less than a foot long. Frank sucked in a long breath and lifted the receiver.

"Hello. Hardy residence... Dad! The cell phone was awful and we couldn't hear anything and Chicago PD wouldn't tell Joe anything and we saw Mom's name on the news and... Is she...Is she ok?" Frank finally had to pause for more air, ending his unconscious stall tactics. He'd had a literal ache for any snippet of news about Laura and yet now that it was imminent, he was petrified.

"Thank God... What?! What for?... But..." Frank ran his fingers through his unruly dark hair before motioning at Joe. A tense pause followed, Frank apparently listening to his father.

Joe leaned toward his sibling's shoulder, straining to hear the conversation, and glared when Frank shoved him toward the kitchen. The weird motioning resumed, Joe this time interpreting the mimed scribbling and darting into the kitchen for paper and a pen. By the time he returned, Frank was once again sputtering incomprehensible fragments.

"Right... What's the number again?... How long?... But... Mom's not... Ok... I will... I know, but Joe can help... Dad, please... We can't just wait... please?... Ok... ... ok... " Frank frowned as he continued listening, free hand mindlessly landing on his brother's forearm and clamping down. Joe didn't appear to notice. "but she won't... right?... Dad?... ok... Bye..."

Frank stumbled slightly on the way back to the living room chairs, oblivious to dragging Joe behind him. The silence had time to become uncomfortable before he spoke. "Grab your bag; we have to get to Chicago."

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to be continued...


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER 5**

"Duck!" Joe lobbed the packed snow in his hands at his sister, laughing as she moved a second too late, the white orb splattering across the shoulder of her coat.

"Oooh! I'll get you!" Amy scooped up a ball of her own, running away as she fired. She missed her brother by a good three feet, not really caring. The deep snow tripped her, leaving a lavender striped mound hardly identifiable as a child.

Joe quickly piled on top, the two of them rolling around, desperately attempting to stuff handfuls of snow down the other's collar while defending their own. Their giggles and grunts all but hid a smaller voice seeking their attention.

A random kick at Joe's shin corrected that. "Hey!" Joe rolled over, swiping snowflakes off his eyelashes with over-sized borrowed gloves. His youngest sister stood above him, a determined pout on her winter reddened face.

"Hold still!" Laura pointed at her siblings with a booted toe, both hands wrapped around a snowball half as big as she was. "I can't hit you 'cause you wiggle too much!"

Joe stared at the four year old, biting his lip a little to quell a laugh. "And who says you're supposed to be able to hit me, short stuff?"

"ME!"

"Oh, well then..." He lurched up to his knees, arms loosely spread out to his sides. He didn't move as she slogged closer, his only resistance squeezing his eyes shut right before she threw the powdery mass. The majority of it slid down his face, dusting his brow with slivers of ice.

He remained frozen another second, not surprised when Laura started to brush the snow from his face. "You look funny, Joey!"

"He doesn't look any funnier than usual." Amy piped into the conversation, dumping another load of snow over Joe's head in the process.

Joe suddenly flopped backwards, knocking Amy over and pulling Laura with him. From there the wild scuffle was on; all of them flinging snow, laughing, and tickling; frosty breath ringing around the wriggling children.

#####

#####

"Fenton?" The soft rasp barely reached the ears of the nurse leaning over the bed. "Fenton..."

"Shhh... honey... You're going to be just fine, ok? We're going to take care of you and you'll be fine."

"Hurts... Fenton?" Laura's voice trailed off again, the blue eyes having never opened.

The nurse gave a grim, tight lipped smile to her companion, both of them exhausted with the number of patients that had rolled into the emergency room in the last three hours. "Just as well she's out again. Surgery ready for her yet?"

The intern there shook his head with a sigh. "Not yet. She's next in either OR four or five, whichever surgeon finishes first." He checked the clipboard dangling off the bedrail. "Fenton's her husband, I guess? Chart note says triage got phone treatment consent from a Mr. Hardy, but the first name isn't here."

"I'm not surprised in all the confusion." An insistent beep drew her attention to a bank of portable monitors. She adjusted the oxygen mask and turned the flow rate up, grimacing. "Surgery better get a move on or there isn't going to be much point."

#####

#####

"Did Dad say where he was?"

"North of Louisville, south of Indianapolis. Way ahead of us."

Joe stretched backward over the seat of his mother's once again repaired Volvo, seemingly feeling every bone in his spine crunch. "We really stay on I-80W for seven hundred and twenty seven miles?"

"Unless tectonic plate shift relocates Chicago before we can get there." Frank stared out over the steering wheel, already tense and tired a mere four hours into the fifteen hour trip.

"Geeze, Frank, I just asked." Joe stuffed the folded MapQuest papers into the glove box before leaning his head against the passenger side window.

Another twenty miles of night-blacked Pennsylvania slid past before either of them spoke again. "Joe?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry. I just... My head's going a million miles a minute, there aren't any commercial flights, we're stuck in this car not knowing anything, Dad hasn't called back, and I'm taking it out on you." Frank rubbed a hand over his eyes, blinking at the endless wet pavement. Rain. Terrific. "Anyway, I'm sorry."

Joe finally nodded. "It's ok, Frank... I'm scared, too."

The silence descended again, both of them frightened inside the mobile box of a car, wondering what awaited them in Illinois.

The cell phone ringing startled Joe out of an uneasy doze four hours later. The rain was coming down harder now, tiny crystals of sleet mixing in with the pelting drops. The conversation was brief and muted, resolving nothing.

"That Dad?" Frank spared his sibling a brief glance, increasingly aware of his own sleepiness and the slick predawn highway.

"Yeah. He's at the hospital, but he can't find anything out. Says the place is absolute chaos. He found a clerk that told him she was 'pretty sure' Mom was still in surgery since she couldn't find a room number for Mom and she didn't seem to be on the morgue list."

"What!? Did Dad say anything else?" Frank blanched at the word morgue.

"Oh yeah, but I suspect repeating it would get me grounded for the rest of my natural lifespan." Joe sighed. Under other circumstances his comment might have been humorous, but at five in the morning it wasn't. Besides, Fenton never cursed. The coarse words betrayed a fear from his father that Joe wasn't prepared to face.

#####

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"Ummmm." Beth McCullough let out a breathy sigh, her back snuggling into her husband's chest as she sank into the deep chair before the hearth.

Benjamin shifted backwards another inch, giving her room to sit between his knees and wrapping both arms around her waist. "Tired?"

Beth nodded, content to let her head loll back against him as she stared at the fire. Deep crimson embers glowed on the upper edge of the three charred logs on the grate, the flames dancing over them as much clear blue as orange-gold. Something about the constant undulation in the dim light was mesmerizing. She intertwined her fingers in Ben's. "Yeah... I'm beat. Happy, though."

"Me, too. I didn't think they'd play like that, I guess. Not after yesterday."

"They just needed a little room away from us grown up sorts to relax." Beth frowned, shaking her head slightly. "I think it's been a long time since adults meant safe haven for them. Maybe never."

Ben brushed a few strands of her hair back before resting his cheek on her head. He could feel a pensive melancholy settling into the room and opted to interrupt it. "Maybe we should get them to come back in."

"Give 'em five more minutes."

The children had spent the entire day outside. After the snowball fight there had been a brief interlude of tomato soup and grilled cheese followed by a giant snowman that Beth had unexpectedly taken on as construction chief. With stick arms, pinecone buttons, an arrangement of acorns for the face, and one of Beth's multicolor toboggans, Miss Snowy was a sight to behold. Laura had made it extraordinarily clear that her snowman wasn't "some dumb ol' boy" no matter how much Joe might believe to the contrary.

Once the snowman, er, snowgirl... um, person... was complete, a second round of snowballs had commenced. Laura and Beth had done more tactical circling than actual tossing of projectiles, but Joe and Amy had lit into one another with a ferocity that would have done Ali-Frazier proud. All in all there were more laughs than band aids in the end and the weary frolickers had decided attempts at skiing could wait another day. Everyone had come in, thawed out, and eaten dinner, then kids trooped back out onto the porch.

The three of them were still out there, pointing at the timeless glitter of a clear night sky, the awe in their hushed voices carrying into the cabin. They'd stood under these same stars hundreds of times, but had never really seen them... never been out from under the haze of city lights.

Ben finally stood, leaving Beth to curl herself up in the cushions. "Somehow I doubt Mr. Alston meant for us to let them freeze to death, no matter how keen their new found passion for astronomy may be."

Beth chuckled slightly. "No, I suppose not."

The screen door hinge groaned loudly as Ben opened it, and for once he was glad. He'd been careful to stay on the perimeter of the games today and the noise provided Joe plenty of warning he was there. "Time to come on in, guys. Beth says cocoa in five minutes."

"Then we can come inside in five minutes?" Amy's query sounded hopeful.

Ben disagreed, but there was a smile in his voice. "Afraid not. It'll take that long to dig you out from all those layers. Who knows, I may have entirely different kids under there than the ones I started the day with!"

"I'm the same!" Laura tipped her head sideways, blonde waves tumbling from her hood as she pushed it backward. Big blue eyes stared up at Ben.

"You are?" Ben worked just the right note of incredulousness into the words as he stooped and pretended to check. "So you are! Well good, 'cause I already know you like cocoa... and ooey gooey marshmallows!"

He almost scooped the child up to carry her in when she grinned, the glow of it lighting her entire face. Only a quick glance at Joe stopped him. Something wavering between nervous acceptance and defensive guardianship flickered over the child's face, oddly managing to encompass both.

Ben straightened. "How about you, Joe? Up for some hot chocolate?"

Joe did step in front of Laura as soon as there was space, but when he answered Benjamin a shy smile won out. "Yes sir. I'd like that... a lot."

#####

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"No, Hardy. H-a-r-d-y. Laura." Joe's eyes roamed the surreal chaos of the hospital's main lobby, only the sharp edge of the front desk biting into his palms providing some anchor to reality. Too many people crowded the marble lined space; huddled into chairs in a contorted mockery of sleep, milling in aimless circles, dodging reporters, and demanding answers from harried staff in rumpled scrubs.

The pale thirtyish brunette behind the desk frowned in annoyance, tapping a few new letters into the keyboard she'd been manning the last eighteen hours with the end of her pencil, the clicks keeping time with the smacking of her gum. "I heard ya the first time, kid, give me a second. In case you haven't noticed, we're a little swamped with all you people."

Joe opened his mouth to reply; fear, anger, and exhaustion combining into a harsh retort that never crossed his lips. It wasn't so much that he understood her point. More that he was too tired to bother. His shoulders slumped lower as more of his weight settled onto the counter. "Yeah, ok."

"There it is." She squinted at the screen, never looking up. "You need to be on the fourth floor."

"Fourth floor? Is that surgery or..." He wasn't quite sure what he wanted to ask... what he was willing to ask... "Is she ok? Does it say?"

An exasperated huff escaped the clerk. "Look, I got a list of room numbers, not the front page of the Tribune. That's it. You need to be on the fourth floor." She peered up a little more intently, the frown lines deepening. "Hey, how old are you anyway? No one under eighteen is allowed upstairs."

"What? It's fourteen at the hospital at home... and they don't enforce that half the time anyway."

"Well, we do. You like the hospital there better, go there next time." The clerk shrugged her shoulders before returning her attention to the monitor in front of her.

Joe stood there another second; reconsidering his decision to take the verbal high road, but it wasn't worth it. He was half way to the elevator before he heard her again.

"Hey! Are you old enough to go upstairs or not, kid?"

Joe paused, then jabbed the up button with his thumb. "Oh, absolutely." The rest of his answered trailed off under his breath into an inaudible mumble. "Not eighteen, but I think I can handle this whole push the glowing circle and hop in the box when the door opens thing... and I'd like to see princess sunshine over there stop me..."

The elevator opened on a far quieter scene, steel blue carpet and soft grey walls wrapping a somber collection of tweed chairs. The glass windows on the far wall did little to brighten the room as the night's freezing rain had changed to snow at midmorning. A few people slouched in the seats, vacant expressions dismissing him as soon as it was obvious that he brought no news about their loved ones.

A uniformed officer stopped Joe before he could scan the waiting area for a familiar face. "This area is restricted. If I could see some identification?"

Joe nodded absently as he fished in his back pocket, noting with some apprehension that the man before him was an Illinois state trooper rather than hospital security or even the local police. A more than welcome voice interrupted him before he could unfold his wallet.

"He's ok. This is my younger son, Joe." Fenton Hardy approached from the window alcove, his usual warm baritone full of raw gravel.

The officer looked between the two with an accepting nod, retreating no more than a half dozen steps as Joe rushed toward his father.

Fenton stopped the teenager with a hand on his shoulder, searching the youth's face for additional trouble. "Where's your brother?"

"Parking the car. The hospital's garage is closed and we couldn't get anywhere close." Joe shifted foot to foot, trying to read his dad's expression. "Is... is everything ok? With Mom?"

Fenton didn't answer immediately, instead pulling his son in tight, arms wrapping around the teen's shoulders with the smallest hint of a shudder.

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to be continued...


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's note:**

Hello all and thanks to everyone who has been reading, in spite of the site's refusal to list it as updated, lol. Special thank you to Cherylann Rivers, Paulina Ann, and ErinJordan for the reviews. I'll be continuing to update this story quickly as I am trying to get all the HDA chapters I can into document manager here as quickly as I can - plus, I'd like to get to posting some new stories soon and some of these older tales of mine are necessary background. Any whoozle, I'll probably lose a few reviews posting this fast, and I'd love to say I always post this fast, but that certainly isn't true. Hope to hear from you and on with the story...

 **CHAPTER 6**

"Ooooh, watch it! Your feet are going to be in different counties here in a minute!" Ben's wry laugh carried up the slope to Joe's slender form.

The late afternoon sun glinted off the snow, reducing the child to a dark silhouette, but it was still glaringly obvious that his skis were pointed in completely opposite directions. Just like the last ten times he'd fumbled and slid his way down the hill. A split second later the angle passed critical and Joe toppled, a succession of flops and tumbles landing him in the vicinity of Ben's feet.

"I thought I had it that time!" The declaration was breathless, but the panting body in the snow interspersed the gasps with laughter.

"You're still doing great for your first day; you're just trying to go a little too fast." Benjamin stopped a half stride away, a hopeful smile on his face as he extended a hand.

"Sir?" Joe hesitated, then slid his gloved hand into the larger one to pull himself up. He cast his gaze down at the snow, but the hint of a grin remained. "Thanks."

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"Dad?" Joe made no attempt to pull back from the tight embrace, relaxing into the arms that had offered solace ever since devastation meant nothing more than a misplaced teddy bear. He might have banished his fears if his mind hadn't chosen that particular moment to remember the last time his father held him close…

 _Iola..._

"Dad?" A quiver marred the question. "W-what happened? To Mom?... I have to know, even if... if..."

Fenton rapidly pushed his son out to arm's length, a flash of guilt crossing his face as he met the blue eyes. "Oh, no Joe... it's not that... she's not... "The detective stopped short as he spotted his elder son entering the waiting area.

Frank circumvented the officer in his path with a glare, crossing the room as his father pulled Joe down to the seats. He slipped into a chair opposite, his knee unconsciously grazing his sibling's as he sat. Somehow the proximity helped. "Is Mom ok?"

An audible swallow filled the space as Fenton paused long enough to grasp Frank's near shoulder with a quick squeeze. "I... think so. Some of the wreckage... it collapsed on her... she was already in surgery when I got here."

Joe nodded, not so much agreeing as encouraging his uncharacteristically shaken parent to continue.

"She broke her left wrist and leg, she cracked a rib, and she inhaled a lot of smoke. The only burns she has are minor, thank goodness. The explosive fire was in the other section of the plane." Another hesitation verging on awkward ensued, followed by a long breath.

"The tibia fracture, it ah..." Fenton seemed to collect himself, rapidly repeating what he'd been told an hour ago. "It was an open break and she lost a lot of blood before the rescuers could cut her free; she almost bled to death before they could get her into surgery. It was all touch and go for a while, but the surgeon thinks she should recover from that. He's worried about her breathing, though. Something about maybe developing lung inflammation... She's in the ICU until Dr. Marcum's sure she's stable."

Frank stared at his father, replaying the details in his head, while Joe slowly stood and began to pace, long arms wrapping around his own frame.

"We almost lost Mom? But..." Joe peered out into the grim cloud cover, not really seeing the wind driven flakes angling past the window. "I mean I knew that, but... how could she almost die while I was asleep in the car? What if she'd...?"

Frank stepped behind his brother, raising one hand to rest on his back. "She didn't, Joe. That's all that matters."

A conspicuously cleared throat from the state trooper in the corner curtailed the moment.

Fenton nodded at the man and waved both of his sons back to the chairs, his usual demeanor sliding back into place as he gestured at the officer. "I'm not sure he's going to allow Joe to stay here all that long. There's substantial early evidence that this crash was caused by an explosive device and the hospital is taking security very seriously. All the survivors from the crash and the rescue crews are here."

"What's that got to do with me?" Joe knitted his eyebrows together. "Is this because I slipped past that crazy witch downstairs?

"Joseph..." Fenton's weary utterance sounded more like an obligatory reprimand rather than any real annoyance with his son. "And yes. There's a possibility that someone specific on the plane was a target rather than terrorism in the more general sense. There are federal personnel everywhere and the state police are helping to control the building. It looks bad if they don't even enforce the hospital's own visitation policies."

"A specific target?" Frank's expression was rather stunned. "I can't imagine crashing a plane full of people to murder one person."

"I'm sure you can't, Frank." Fenton sighed again, scrubbing at his face with his palms. "I don't know any of the details yet. I don't think anyone does, really. I only got a preliminary report as a courtesy from a contact at Homeland Security who's here on site."

Joe read between those lines easily enough. "A courtesy or an offer to get involved in the investigation since Mom was on that plane?"

Fenton managed a tight smile. "The offer was made. I didn't take it. The target wasn't your mother and I'm leaving it there."

A strange relief flooded through Joe, quite separate from the relief at finding out his mother would survive. He stuffed the reasons for that to the back of his mind, having little doubt they'd resurface at some equally inappropriate moment. "Have you seen Mom?"

"Not yet. We should be able to soon and you can go in first, Joe. That way you can go downstairs, the hospital can congratulate itself on the rules, and the nice policeman over there can quit glowering at us."

"Oh. Yeah, but I'll..." Joe didn't get an opportunity to finish as a nurse in lavender-grey scrubs entered the room.

"Hardy?"

Fenton shifted in the chair he'd occupied for hours, deep brown eyes staring sightlessly at white sheets. In the end, he'd entered Laura's room first, Joe freezing at the doorway before an abrupt retreat to the tweed chairs. When he allowed his gaze to flicker over his wife it was easy enough to understand why. Laura looked dead.

By dinner, Frank had been in the ICU twice, physically dragging Joe with him on the latter trip, convinced if Joe could touch their mother he'd calm down. It probably would have worked better if her nearly translucent skin weren't so cold, but the younger Hardy did seem to relax a fraction after that. At least for the thirty seconds he'd managed to stay in her room before bolting again. The second shift police officer had chosen to actively not notice how old Joe was... or wasn't... afterward, carefully examining everyone's ID except his. Both boys were back in the waiting room at the moment, banished by a well meaning nurse who'd declared that Laura would rest better overnight with only one visitor at a time.

Fenton huffed softly in frustration at that, as resting didn't seem to be much of a problem. His second sunrise in Chicago and Laura hadn't moved more than the fingers of her right hand, unfocused blue eyes rarely making an incoherent and fleeting appearance. The hiss of air through plastic tubing and the relentless beeping of monitors measured off mind numbingly tiny segments of time.

The monotony suddenly gave way to shuffled footsteps rapidly picking up in tempo and blaring noises in the corridor, interrupted by quickly barked demands. The fourteen rooms of the surgical ICU formed a horseshoe around the nurses' station, Laura occupying the final room to the right. The source of the cacophony seemed to be coming from room three or four.

Fenton clasped his wife's hand a little tighter, somehow trying to ward off the medical drama playing out twenty feet away. Dr. Marcum was convinced Laura was improving, but away from his sons, Fenton could acknowledge this whole situation scared the hell out of him. The whine of a cardiac monitor going flat found the detective whispering something between a prayer and plea... not Laura...

 _"Code Blue... SICU... Code Blue... SICU..."_

 _"No visitors are permitted at this time."_

Joe jabbed at the door buzzer again, determined to find a way back into the surgical ICU if it involved gnawing through the door with his teeth. Glaring when the red square failed to produce any kind of result, he shifted stance, one shoulder half a breath from ramming the offending wooden portal.

"Hey! No!"

A strong arm snaked around his waist, yanking him backwards and holding him firm.

"Let me go! My mother-" Joe spun within the restraining grip, one fist unconsciously drawing back.

"Joe! Stop it! Calm down."

The owner of the arm around his middle coalesced into a recognizable face. His brother. He let his fist drop to his side, but tension still radiated through every muscle. "Frank?"

"Yeah, Frank. Who else?" The brunette steered his panicked sibling around the corner, out of the gaze of the _very_ attentive policeman. "You ok? It's not her, Joe. It's not her."

"But... I heard them call a code on the loud speaker and..." Joe's shoulders stiffened again under his brother's hands, signaling another imminent charge at the door.

"I know. I heard it too." Frank sucked in a deep breath, preferring not to elaborate on precisely how he'd reacted. There were three cups of coffee splattered in the stairwell between the second and third floor to attest to that without further commentary. He pointed toward a small cluster of anxious people at the end of the waiting room. "But it's not Mom. The nurse came out and started talking to the family over there at the same time I got to the top of the stairs."

Joe sank into a chair, slowly shaking his head. "I didn't see her come out."

Frank finally released Joe, relatively certain his brother would stay in the row of seats now. "Too busy attacking innocent door buzzers, I expect."

Joe glanced up sharply, but the brown eyes staring at him belied the words. There wasn't any teasing or reproach there, just sympathetic understanding. "Yeah. Guess so."

"Joe, she's going to be fine. Dr. Marcum said she was getting better this morning; you heard him."

"Yeah. Wonder what he told _them_ this morning..." The dark mutter was almost inaudible.

"Joe-" Frank shifted slightly, one hand landing on Joe's forearm almost by accident. "That's not fair..."

A loud sigh escaped the younger boy. "I know. Dr. Marcum seems confident about Mom, but I can't help worrying that something's going to go wrong. Being stupid, I guess."

"No, you're not." Frank took a deep breath, stilling his own doubts. "I'm still worried, too - but she's going to be fine."

"You can't know that for sure, Frank." Joe's gaze had shifted to the family with the nurse, the first gasps of what quickly turned into a desolate sob reaching his ears. "You just can't."

Frank stared as well, somehow unable to look away as the sad little gathering closed ranks. The nurse departed with a final pat to a slumped shoulder.

"I'm so very sorry..." Her soft words crossed the room and draped over both brothers.

"Come on." Frank stood, ignoring the tremble in Joe's arm - or maybe it was in his own hand.

"What?" Joe took several seconds to answer, blinking when he realized his brother had spoken again.

"I said come on." Frank gave him a slight tug. "We're getting in there to see Mom - and you're staying this time."

#####

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"Joey?" Laura blinked huge blue eyes at her waking sibling while tapping her finger lightly on his cheek.

He struggled to sit up in the twisted sleeping bag, startled, and just managed to catch her ankle before she slipped past him. "Shh. Where ya going?"

"I'm thirsty."

"It's the middle of the night." Joe quickly glanced around at Amy and the McCulloughs, all still asleep beneath the dangling stars and strewn blankets of their makeshift fort. "Go back to bed."

Laura tipped her head, four year old mind thinking that over. "It's not a bed."

"You know what I mean."

"Can't. I'm still thirsty."

Joe rubbed the sleep out of his eyes with a sigh and shoved the cover off his legs. _We're going to get in trouble if we wake anyone, short stuff, you know that... but I know I'll never get you back to sleep..._ "Ok, come on... but be really, really quiet."

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to be continued...


	7. Chapter 7

**CHAPTER 7**

Sometime the previous morning, Beth McCullough had transported the entire blanket-fort-and-paper-star sleeping area up to the cabin's loft. It was either that or hope a miniature hurricane blew through and cleared a path to the kitchen before they all starved. In any case, the move had the nice side effect of moving the sleeping children closer to the hewn-beam ceiling, and the girls had drifted off pointing out their favorite stars and dangling snowflakes.

The result at the moment, though, was that Joe found himself creeping down a set of open plank stairs in the dark, holding his breath every time one of the boards creaked. It would have been easier without Laura an inch behind him, but the thirsty tot had refused to wait at the top of the steps while he got her a drink. Apparently, the flickering shadows from the fire that had been oh-so-fascinating before bed were downright scary in the middle of the night and now the preschooler was stuck to him like glue.

"Is there more juice?" The whisper came about two steps from the bottom.

"I don't know. Plenty of milk, if not. Shh." Joe crossed the floor into the small kitchen, squinting his eyes at the sudden brightness as he opened the refrigerator.

"There's still apple juice." Laura's voice was muted, but jubilant. There was an entire container of chilled apple juice and all was well with her world.

Grinning in spite of the risk of raiding someone else's food when they were clearly supposed to be in bed, Joe poured two cups of the juice before putting the bottle back on the shelf. He drained his drink, setting the glass in the sink, and watched his sister sip at hers. A small smirk played over his face.

"What Joey?" Laura didn't miss the amused expression, even in the dim firelight.

"Just thinking that for someone too thirsty to sleep, it's taking you long enough to drink that." Joe mouthed his reply, reminding his sister to keep her voice down with a single finger upraised across his lips.

"I'm little."

"Umm, yeah... So?"

"So I have to take little drinks."

The ten year old shrugged. Preschooler logic required a certain, ah, flexibility in interpretation. "Right."

"Done." Laura handed him her glass, too short to reach the sink herself.

Joe placed the cup beside his, frowning as he tried to decide if he was likely to get into more trouble for not cleaning up the glasses or for running the water at two o'clock in the morning. The McCulloughs seemed genuinely nice, but... he'd been down that path before. He gave himself a quick mental kick as he realized they should have shared a glass. That way he could have claimed he was the only one out of bed; kinda hard to make that believable now.

"Jo-ey?" The name came out more drowsy murmur than soft whisper this time.

He looked at Laura with a start. He must have been pondering longer than he thought as his sibling was now swaying alarmingly, falling back to sleep where she stood. "Come on, sleepy head, let's tuck you back in."

Laura nodded, a small fist winding in the back of Joe's dark flannel shirt as they tiptoed past the hearth to get to the stairs. Eyes half closed, she let him lead the way, too tired to even hold up her head. She stumbled just as they rounded the stone corner at the end of the fireplace, unintentionally yanking Joe backwards...

...which shoved her backwards, too...

...into a big floor vase full of some sort of decorative dried branches...

...which toppled over with all the subtlety of an elephant attempting a pirouette...

...and snagged the fabric of the crocheted mantle scarf on the way by...

... culminating in a freeze framed moment of airborne antique clock and brass candlesticks, launched from the walnut mantle above...

Time resumed with the crash of two suddenly very alert children, one humongous glazed pottery vase, three dozen assorted twigs, two hefty candlesticks, and an oversized glass clock into the silence of a snow-insulated woodland cabin in the middle of the night. An impressive crash, not to be confused with merely noisy. Nope, definitely not. Noisy was bad, but... heck... bad didn't come remotely close to conveying this amount of calamitous racket... this was somewhere past rock concert finale, rapidly closing in on Fourth of July fireworks.

Before the sound even stopped it was joined by Amy's frightened shriek from the loft above and a gruff male bellow.

"WHAT in the THUNDER is going on!?"

#####

#####

"And I said back up." The officer's voice wasn't loud, but the edge beneath it was unmistakable. He had no intention of permitting the two teenagers before him through the ICU door.

Frank's eyebrow rose in acknowledgement of the statement, but he didn't retreat an inch. "No."

The trooper grunted somewhat with the futility of explaining the situation yet again before launching into another try. Somehow he'd thought the brunette was the easier of two to deal with, but he'd been mistaken. "Look kid, there was a significant medical emergency in there and you'll be underfoot. Now back off and go sit down."

Frank shook his head, a sharp clipped movement. "Not without more information. Your explanation doesn't make sense."

"It most certainly does. There's a medical emergency. That requires doctors and nurses. You aren't either. It's plain enough." Anger began seeping into the patrolman's words.

"Frank, maybe we could-" Joe slipped his forearm from his brother's grasp, surprised to suddenly find himself the voice of reason. Five minutes ago he'd been the one all for charging through the door. Of course, five minutes ago he hadn't yet spotted a nurse entering the punch code to the side door. Sneaking in would be a whole lot easier...

"No, Joe, we couldn't." Frank's voice dropped half an octave, irrelevant to the officer, but a shrieking warning to his sibling. The elder of the pair was both unaware of an alternative entrance option and rapidly working his way from controlled annoyance to blatant anger. Frank nodded toward the older man, staring into ebony eyes not six inches from his own. "I understand about staying out of the way, but whatever was going on in there _medically_ is over. Something else is happening."

"No visitors are allowed and you have no way of knowing what's going on in there, son. SIT!"

Frank moved, but it was toward the shorter officer, encroaching on what little space remained between them. "Actually, I do. One, you said no visitors, but our father is still in there. Two, a nurse came out right after the code and spoke to a family, all of whom left - crying. Three, two men with a gurney and a dark velvet blanket went in there. Hospital transport doesn't use blankets like that, but the morgue does. Four, everyone that's gone in there since the morgue fellows left has been in a cheap dark suit. Government guys, not doctors. Five-"

A large palm shoved into the middle of Frank's chest. "Let me stop you right there before you run out of fingers."

"How about you let me stop both of you." There wasn't a hint of question in the firm words, the command forcing the policeman to take a hasty step away from the youth in front of him.

"Dad?" Joe ripped his eyes away from Frank at the sound of his father's voice, grateful for the senior detective's interruption. The tenuous grip he had on his brother's shirt wasn't going to last much longer.

Fenton trailed his fingers through his hair before blinking at his sons. They looked as exhausted as he felt, but there was an undeniable tension there as well; one he needed to defuse. He pointed at two of the waiting room chairs, confident the boys would follow him. "I was coming out to find you - they're moving your mother upstairs."

"We heard the code and we..." Joe hesitated... _And we were going to break through the door?... We were about to slug our way in because we're scared half to death?... We were afraid Mom was really gone this time?_ "... and we were coming to check on Mom."

"She's fine - or she's the same anyway." Fenton slumped into a seat, impatiently gesturing at his sons when they didn't immediately follow suit. "All the patients that can safely be moved are going up to the eighth floor. There's a locked ward up there that hasn't been used in years apparently. It's being cleared out for the crash survivors; it's easier to secure."

"A locked ward? What's the hospital got that for?" Frank seemed to be settling down.

"It used to be psychiatry, but that's primarily handled at another campus with more modern mental health facilities now. The old design does make security easier, though."

Frank stood again, edging half a step toward the ICU door before Joe caught his eye and squirmed slightly.

The silent interaction wasn't lost on Fenton. "Something you'd like to share, boys?"

Joe picked randomly at his thumbnail, saying nothing, while Frank drew a tentative breath before answering. "Not particularly. It's just... like Joe said. We were coming to check on Mom. Joe was a little anxious about the code and I was keeping him from breaking through the door."

That statement brought a soft snort from Joe and a questioning glance from his father. "That's not precisely how it looked when I walked in, Frank."

"Um... it did start that way..." Frank looked over at Joe until the younger boy shrugged, conceding the point, "But then I guess I got a bit irritated with the officer. Something else is going on in there, Dad, no matter what that cop says and..."

"And we can talk about it after we go upstairs." Fenton stood, moving toward the elevator.

"I think we should talk to him first. He knows something; I'm sure of it."

"Upstairs, Frank." Fenton leveled both his children with a stare that announced he was well aware something didn't add up. "Now."

Joe flicked his eyes between parent and sibling, sending a silent apology to his brother before stepping around Frank to enter the now open elevator car. Frank followed him in. Maybe the eighth floor would hold some answers.

Fenton relaxed as the door closed, turning to face his elder child. "I thought you were bringing us coffee?"

"Yeah, about that - "

#####

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"I... I didn't mean to. I'm s-sorry... I..."

Benjamin McCullough had charged down the cabin steps ten seconds earlier, pausing only long enough to flip on the lights and simultaneously grab a broom handle before darting to the chaos strewn fireplace. Laura seemed to be more or less on top of the mound of broken glass and pottery shards; only a few twigs overlying her tiny form.

A visual sweep of the room dispelled his initial fear that either a clumsy burglar or enraged bear had entered while they slept. Still shaken, he scooped the child from the mess, carefully brushing away glass slivers from her hair. He had deposited her on the couch and was returning for Joe when the stammered apologies finally registered.

"What?" He pivoted back to the sofa, torn between hearing the quiet words and reaching the boy coiled on his floor. Joe wasn't getting up.

Laura spoke again, a little louder, although she'd started to cry. "I'm s-sorry."

"Shh. It's ok. Are you hurt?" Sorry could wait, as long as she was alright.

"N-no."

"Ok. Stay right there." Ben stifled a yelp as a stray piece of glass made its way through the thin leather of his slippers. "Joe? Are you ok? I need you to answer me. Joe?"

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to be continued...


	8. Chapter 8

**CHAPTER 8**

 _Quit poking at my head. It hurts._

"No, no cut there, but the lump's nasty. He certainly has enough scrapes and glass everywhere else, though. Pass me those tweezers before he wakes up. He's starting to stir."

"Thank goodness for that. Can you get those out?"

"Yeah, but I'm not sure he won't need stiches after. Pass that towel over here, too."

 _What?_

 _Ow! Hey! What? Oh, the mantle. I caught the cloth and everything fell and... Hey! Ow... Ow...Ouch!_

"Ouch!" Sapphire blue eyes snapped open, blinking against the bright glare. He surveyed everything in a split second - the still ebony sky outside the cabin window, the tremendous mess covering half the room, the lamp on the end table now minus its shade, and Beth McCullough looming over, effectively pinning his supine form to the couch, bloody tweezers in hand.

"Hold still, Joe." The tweezers came at him again, almost making the child flinch away… and then he spotted Laura.

 _No. Oh please no._ His sister was curled in their host's lap in the chair before the fire, tears smearing her cheeks and Benjamin's restraining hand clamped on her shoulder. Panic immediately replaced pain on Joe's face as he struggled to sit up. "She didn't... It was me. I knocked it all over. It's my fault; please... let her go..."

Benjamin shot an alarmed glance at the shard embedded in Joe's neck, aware the kid hadn't noticed it yet. The older man lurched abruptly forward to assist his wife, forearm pressing into Joe's chest in an effort to still the flailing youngster.

The instant his arm touched Joe the room exploded into simultaneous bedlam once more.

"Don't hit him!" Laura's shrill voice rose from the floor as she slid downward.

"Stop moving for God's sake!" Worry lent a harsh edge to Ben's command.

"What happened?!" Amy stumbled down the stairs, unable to figure out the chaos as Laura cried and her brother resumed a fierce struggle with the adults surrounding him.

"It's ok, Joe. It's going to be alright." Beth's softer words were lost in the chorus of yelling.

Everything still might have been okay had Joe not added a final shout:

"LAURA, RUN! RUN NOW!"

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"Fent-ton?" The question was faint, verging on inaudible.

The detective opened his eyes with a start, not quite certain he'd heard anything. The ugly grey chair creaked as he straightened from a slouch, bringing his elbows up to rest on the vinyl rail of the hospital bed. "Laura?"

He had ample time to shift again, lowering his chin to the railing as he decided he'd imagined the whisper. If she'd just wake up… it was all he needed. She was all he needed.

"Fen?" The long eye lashes fluttered, slowly opening to reveal pale blue eyes. "Hi."

"Hi, yourself." The husky rasp cracked halfway through, nearly a week's fear wedged between the words. The back of his fingers traced across his wife's bruised cheek, gently brushing aside damp tendrils of blonde hair. A feather soft kiss followed.

Laura stared at her husband, a faint smile slowing curving her lips.

"What?" Fenton knew the look; he just wasn't sure what could be amusing at the moment.

"You look worried." Three consecutive words were a challenge for her scorched throat, but the wistful smile remained.

The frown lines across Fenton's forehead deepened. "You scared me."

She grasped his hand tighter, thickened tongue ghosting over chapped lips before she answered. "Wasn't intentional."

Fenton finally permitted himself the slightest of smiles too. "Crashing the plane and crawling through an inferno wasn't on your agenda, huh?"

Laura breathed out a pained chuckle. "Is that what happened?... Thought I tried… to wade through Joe's room…"

Fenton pressed his fingers against her lips, shushing the conversation when he heard the shallow breaths degrade into coughing. "I love you, Laura. When the news came on and I thought… I thought… I don't ever want to be without you. Not ever."

Her eyes drifted closed again before she answered. "Love you, too… and I'm not that easy to be rid of."

He bent to kiss her again, allowing his head to rest on the bed as the slow even breaths told him Laura was asleep once more. "I hope not, love, I hope not."

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Joe raised his head from the computer with a jerk, suddenly aware of a footstep behind him. He slammed the laptop closed and spun the chair in a single motion, letting out an exaggerated huff when the shadowed figure stepped into view. "Geez, Frank, sneak up on a guy why don't ya?"

"You're slipping, little brother. I got within five feet of you before you whirled around. I could have taken you out before you made it out of your seat."

Joe truncated a snort. "Dream on, dude. I would have heard anyone other than you."

"Hate to break it to you, but your hearing isn't any more Spiderman-esque than the next guy's."

"Spidermanesque? Tell me you did not just make up a word." Joe stared at his sibling across the paneled hospital office. "Besides, maybe I was complimenting your stealth skills."

"Uh-huh. As I recall, you're the one that says you have spidey sense. So, how much is this particular compliment going to cost me?"

"Hey, it's all Batman now, keep up – but I'd settle for a Danish and another coffee." Joe put on his best little brother wheedle face, both brothers noticeably more relaxed since their mother had awakened the previous evening.

"That compliment might, and I emphasize might, be worth the coffee." Frank leaned on the edge of desk, crossing his arms in mock indignation. "If you want a Danish with it, you're going to have to admit I could have walloped you a good one. You need to be more careful."

"I'm always careful and you find me far too lovable to wallop."

"What universe are you living in? 'Cause here in reality land, I haven't noticed this alleged carefulness. So, what are you hiding?"

"Who says I'm hiding anything?"

"The computer slamming act wasn't exactly subtle, Joe." Frank gestured at the now closed laptop, one that distinctly wasn't his brother's.

The younger of the pair hesitated, replaying an earlier conversation with their father and wondering if his sibling would feel compelled to shut his little project down. As soon as their mother had arrived on the eighth floor, the three Hardy men had retreated to the cafeteria, mechanically eating stale vending machine sandwiches with overly sweetened lemonade while they compared notes. Their father had acknowledged Frank's accusation that the officers knew more than they were letting on. He'd also told his sons to stay out of it.

Joe eventually concluded there wasn't much purpose in denying anything to Frank. "Did you know the hospital security log is available online?"

Frank frowned. "The log of who comes in and out of the building's secured areas?"

"Yep. And what time they came, and who they saw." Joe's grin widened as his brother's frown grew deeper, ending with an intentionally ridiculous waggle of eyebrows.

Frank resisted the goofy expression as long as he could and finally laughed. "So it's just right there on the hospital homepage, huh? Define 'available.'"

"Wellll….." Joe drug the word out, considering. "I might have circumvented a thing or two, here and there."

"And what would be the goal of this little misadventure? Other than getting arrested for computer hacking and breaking into an administrative office?" Frank could think of several possibilities, but he wanted to be sure he was on the same wavelength as his brother.

"For starters, eleven different people from the FAA have spoken with the patient in room 436 – although said patient is now in room 806. Oddly enough, three detectives from the state police and five FBI agents have spoken with them, too. So, either both the state police and the FBI have so much free time that they are now moonlighting in plane crash investigation, and patient 806 had the best seat in the house when the flight went down, or…"

Frank interrupted, finishing the train of thought. "Or most of those FAA agents weren't from the FAA. Homeland security maybe… or CIA. Someone of that level of interest to the FBI might attract either one. If you, ah, obtain some information on who those guys really are, we might be able to figure out what's so interesting at least."

"Way ahead of you. I already tried out a few of those little tricks you showed me last fall and used the FBI site to research the names. Two of them really are FAA agents, and those two have spoken to all the other passengers that are awake. Six more are Homeland security."

"That leaves three." Frank waited, sensing Joe was holding these to the last on purpose.

"Oh, you already know the last three, Frank." Joe gave his sibling a sharp look.

"Network?"

"Right in one."

Frank left the edge of the desk to pace, sighing heavily. "Now what?"

"What do you mean?" Joe watched his brother closely, gauging his answer.

"I mean did you sneak in here and hack the computer because the officer banned you from the waiting room and you couldn't come up with anything else to do on short notice, or do you really want to get involved in this?"

Joe nibbled on the edge of his thumb. "I think we got involved in this the minute that plane came down."

"Feds don't smile on borrowing their computer systems."

"No, not so much." Joe paused, knowing his sibling was primarily talking to himself. Frank liked to work things through out loud.

"And Dad told us not to do this."

"True."

"But you already did, so…"

"So?"

"So, it wouldn't really make sense to ignore the information you already have, although I think the next step is to find out about the fellow in 806. What's so special about him? Was he the original target?"

Joe shook his head. "That I can't tell you, but I can tell you one thing. Patient 806 isn't a fellow at all. Carmen Feland. She. And she happens to be younger than I am."

Frank raised an eyebrow, surprised. "Then we start with Miss Feland. Computer search first or interview first? And no, we're not going to divide and conquer. I really could have been anyone on the way in here."

"I'm just tired, Frank, that's all. You won't sneak up on me again. Dividing the work would be faster."

"No, and we're both tired. All the more reason to stick together."

Joe shrugged, conceding this one to Frank. "Computer search first, then. Those little tips of yours are actually sort of handy – in a computer geeky sort of way."

"And I thought you never listen to anything I teach you."

"Oh, I listen, Frank, I just weed out the useless stuff. You know, most of it."

Frank rolled his eyes, hauling his sibling out of the chair and opening the laptop. "Not like I show you everything. Watch and learn, little brother, watch and learn."

The tapping of the computer keys slowed, then dwindled to a stop. Frank stretched, wiping the keyboard and desk clean with a handful of tissues as he stood. Joe cleaned the doorknob as the pair let themselves out. They made it to a tiny patio outside the eighth floor waiting room, their six foot frames dwarfing the scrolled white wrought iron bench. A riot of multicolored glazed flower pots littered the small space, the brown husks of last summer's vines meandering among more evergreen offerings.

Both brothers gazed about, satisfying themselves that the other outdoor decks extending here and there from the hospital walls were too far away for any eavesdroppers. Certainly the eight foot concrete square beneath their feet was too minuscule to harbor any unseen guests.

"Well?"

Frank ran his hand through tousled dark hair. "Well what?"

"I saw that look. Something you saw on that screen shut you up faster than a year's supply of taffy. What didn't you want to talk about in the building?"

"I cross referenced the three network agent names with the passenger list and their immediate relatives to see if there was anything in common."

"I'm assuming you mean before the crash. Since then, all three agents would likely have files on every passenger."

Frank nodded. "Of course."

Before he could explain any further, Joe spoke again. "Why'd you include immediate relatives? Not that it's a bad idea, I'm just not certain I would have thought about that on the first run."

"Mostly because of us, actually. How many times have we been the target of someone that was after Dad? I figured if someone on that plane was the target of a bomber, then it might be a family member that was the focus of the bomber's anger rather than the passenger himself… or herself as the case may be."

Joe seemed more animated as he considered the idea, rapidly pacing the perimeter of the square as his speech picked up speed. "Especially if the target was Carmen Feland. As young as she is, it could very well be that someone was hurting her to hurt her family… and let me guess, all three agents have a file on Ms. Feland's family for some reason."

"A good guess, and that's what I expected, but no." Frank paused. "What I found surprised me a little. First, two of the agents were gathering information on Carmen; not any of her family. The third has a file on her, but didn't have to do much digging to find his intel – he's her uncle."

Joe let out a soft whistle. "This just got more complicated. Even if I end up in the dog house, I think we need to talk to Dad."

Frank's expression tightened a bit. "That we do… and Joe, Carmen Feland wasn't the only name I came up with that made all three agent's active investigation file list."

Something about his brother's tone dropped Joe's stomach a notch. "What's the other name?"

"Fenton Hardy."

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to be continued:...


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's note:**

As always, thanks to everyone reviewing and especially to Cherylann, Paulina, and ErinJordan. Reviews mean the world, really!

 **CHAPTER 9**

"I'm not really sure where to start this conversation." Joe drummed his fingers against his knees, the rushed rhythm betraying his apprehension.

"It's just Dad, Joe. It's not like he's going to ground us 'til we're thirty. " Frank sighed, not particularly looking forward to it either.

"No, he's not going to ground _you_ until you're thirty. You didn't decide to hack the hospital computer and then borrow the FBI research site with his logon ID. You didn't specifically ignore his instructions not to look into the plane bombing. And, let's not forget, you didn't wreck mom's car for the second Halloween in a row."

"No, I only got arrested for Halloween once I suppose."

Frank's mutter was barely audible, but Joe caught the final words. " _What_?"

"Long story, but the sheriff in Remsen, New York won't be making my Christmas list again this year. Anyhow, I helped you with the computer hacking, so I think we're pretty much in this one together. Besides, talking to Dad was your idea in the first place. Come on."

"Why do you think the Network has a file on Dad anyway?"

"No idea – yet." Frank tugged his brother toward their mother's hospital room. "We may as well get this over with."

Joe nodded somewhat reluctantly. "I guess."

Laura's closed hospital door appeared sooner than the blonde youth would have preferred. He stopped short, palms spread over the wood.

Frank waited, surprised when Joe's forehead dropped to lean against the oak as well. "Joe? Hey, I was just making a bad joke; you're too fidgety for Dad to risk confining us to the house too long; he has to live there too…. Joe?... We've confessed worse… What's wrong?"

"I haven't, ah, haven't… with Mom…"

Joe's headlong flight from their mother's room the first day in Chicago flashed through his sibling's mind. "You did talk to Mom last night, right?"

"Um, no actually. When I came up from the cafeteria she was asleep again, so I just sat with her awhile. She never said a word." Joe straightened with a shudder, swiping damp palms across his jeans. "She had to crawl through a burning plane, Frank, alone. Then it exploded, just like… I saw that fireball… I can't stop thinking… "

"Joe, she's gonna be fine." Frank rested a hand against his brother's shoulder, gently nudging him back toward the door. "You need to talk to her."

The door creaked open an inch, then Joe froze again. "Not right now I don't."

The heavy breath behind him wavered somewhere between exasperation and sympathy. Their mother's deep bruises and cast were unnerving, but if Joe would simply talk to her, he might exorcise a few ghosts. "Yeah, you do. It's the only way you're going to believe she's ok."

Joe stepped silently backward, the shoulder under his brother's fingers shaking in earnest now.

Alarm lanced through the older of the pair until he heard his sibling's failed attempt at squelching a chuckle. Frank raised an eyebrow and peered into the room, wondering at the sudden mood shift.

His eyes widened at the scene. He couldn't see that much of his mother; only a few slack fingers twined through the deep brown hair at the nape of his father's neck and a tumble of blonde waves spread across the pillow. What he did see was his father's broad shoulders sprawled over the bed, one hand draped over the side rail and the other lost somewhere beneath the edge of a hospital gown. Fenton's face was buried in the curve of his wife's neck, softly muffled snores escaping from one or the other of them. Frank really didn't want to know which. He let the door fall closed, a flushed smile playing across his face. "Maybe you have a point."

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"Dammit!" The heavy cotton of Amy's nightshirt slipped through Beth's fingers as the little girls fled out into the night. She heard something scraping across the wood of the porch and could only pray the children had grabbed their abandoned coats and boots as they passed.

Benjamin was halfway to the door, ready to charge into the dark when a desperate form lurched in front of him, blocking his way.

"S-sir, no…" Small fists pounded against the larger man; an ineffectual attempt at shoving him backward.

Benjamin cast a frantic glance between the bloody child before him and his wife as she hurriedly crammed on footwear. "I've got him, Beth, go. Go!" He wrapped both arms around Joe, wrestling him back to the couch.

"Joe, stop it! Stop!" Ben only managed to get the boy on his back once more by straddling him, both hands flat on the heaving chest. "You're going to cut your throat if you don't stop thrashing around. There's still glass sticking out!"

The words meshed with a lifetime of threats, punches, and far worse in the child's head, distilling into something quite unintended. _Quit thrashing or I'll slit your throat…_ Joe risked a tight nod and then froze, terrified.

The older man let out a shaky breath, quickly checking the still embedded spike. Amazingly, it didn't look any worse than before. "Hold still and let me get this out."

Joe didn't bother to nod this time. His darting breaths were rapid fire now, a sheen of sweat increasingly coating him in the chilled room. _What? But... God, his fist is huge, how did I not notice that..._

Tweezers loosed a sharp hiss of breath and a flow of crimson to seep into flannel. Benjamin discarded the shard and the metal pincers on the table, then ran a quick hand over Joe before pressing a folded towel against his neck, staunching the blood flow. "I don't feel any more glass anywhere."

A full minute passed, Benjamin expecting a response and Joe expecting a punch, the faintest of whimpers finally leaving the child's lips.

The sound broke through the adrenaline of the last few minutes, the boy's fear crashing into Benjamin with startling clarity. He hurriedly swung off the couch, pressing Joe's smaller hand over the wad of toweling as he stood. He backed away from the sofa, staying in the youth's line of sight, and sat on the floor about five feet away.

"It's ok, Joe. Everything's ok. Beth will find the girls, I'll get the fire stoked up, and it'll all be fine."

The boy's eyes got wider if anything. _Find the girls…No…_ "N-no sir, you don't need to do that. Nothing with my sisters, please. It's my fault."

Benjamin surveyed the wreckage of the cabin floor. "It was an accident, Joe. A big accident, but nothing more than that."

"Laura didn't do anything, sir. Please." _Please not her… I'll be ok… nothing I can't handle… he can't do anything new, right?... I'll be ok… I'm always ok… eventually…_

The laughing child of the last day was withering away faster than McCullough could fathom what to say. The kid wouldn't hear it anyway. "Joe?"

The silence stretched again.

"Joe?"

"Yes sir?" _I'll be ok… Please let him just hit... I'll be ok..._

"I'm not mad at you… or Laura. It doesn't matter who did what."

"It wasn't Laura. I did it. I tripped and - "

"Shh. I don't need an explanation right now."

 _Stop making excuses I'm not in the mood to hear boy; it never got you out of a beating before…_ The nasty voice in his head offered an unwanted translation again, forcing a nearly silent sob from Joe.

"Your neck ok?" Benjamin gestured toward the crimson stained cloth, careful not to move any closer.

 _You better not be dying over there, kid, 'cause I ain't got the time to be digging no hole…_ The commentary in his brain raged overwhelmingly now. _"_ F-fine, sir. I'm... ready..."

Doubt clouded Benjamin's expression, but he didn't refute the claim. "How about I start some more cocoa so we can warm everybody up when they come in? I think I can work my way from here to there."

Joe drew in a sharp breath and forced himself upright once more. _I can't even wade through your blang mess. Everything you get near is a disaster…You're a worthless disaster…_ "I'll clean this up. All of it, I promise. I'll pay for what we broke… somehow… I'll - "

"We?"

"I meant I… I… It was just me. Whatever trouble I'm in, it was just m-me, sir. P-please. Please." Joe's stammer increased in a frightened tempo, appalled at making such a stupid slip. _I'm supposed to get Laura and Amy out of trouble, not in it. I can't let that happen..._

"I'm not going to do anything, Joe. Nothing except make cocoa, and we'll all clean this up in the morning."

"S-Sir?" Joe heard the words, but nothing in his past allowed for comprehension of what the man meant. The relentless memories clanging through his head, twisting words; now those made sense. You break someone's stuff and they break your skull. That was much simpler than whatever Benjamin McCullough was trying to say. He swiped at a traitorous drop sliding down one cheek. _Dang, don't start crying, you big baby… Wish he'd get this over with…_

"Joe? There's nothing you need to be afraid of." Ben edged a step closer to the trembling youngster.

"I'm n-not afraid." Unfortunately the false bravado and squared shoulders did nothing to still the quiver in his lip, or the flinch as his new bruises tugged at the older crop. "I'm almost eleven, sir, so whatever I've got coming, I can h-handle it… just leave my sisters alone. Please."

"Nothing is going to happen to Amy or Laura." Benjamin took another step, palms open and upturned. "Or you. You know, everybody is afraid sometimes; it's nothing you have to hide. Even I've been afraid once or twice since I was eleven -like right now, for instance."

Joe cast a dubious look toward the floor, altering the path of a wayward tear track. Adults didn't get scared. Everything else was suddenly confusing, but he was sure of that.

The older man saw the doubt, but plowed onward. "I'm a complete rookie at this parenting job, and I'm afraid I'm doing the wrong things, and saying the wrong words, and I really don't know how to fix that. I do know that whatever has you so frightened started a long time before that clock hit the floor and I hope someday you'll trust me enough to let me help. I also know that day isn't likely to be today. Maybe, though, we could start with you knowing just one thing for me."

Benjamin waited until Joe looked up, finally meeting his eyes.

"There is absolutely nothing you could do that would make me hurt you. Ever."

Very slowly, something in the child changed, replacing fear and futility with mere apprehension and the faintest hint of something else. Something that might have been hope.

#####

#####

Frank winced at the scalding coffee sliding over his tongue, the black liquid more caustic than relaxing at its current temperature. Still, it was a welcome distraction from the typed sheets littering the low table before him. Maybe he could burn his tongue to the point he wouldn't be able to explain any of this to Joe. That was a ridiculous thought. Burning the papers instead was clearly a more reasonable idea. _Wonder if the hotel has matches_ …

Ten minutes later he'd picked up each stack again, reshuffling a few sheets from one mound to another, but it didn't help. Maybe he'd have time to make sense of it before Joe returned with breakfast. Especially as his sibling seemed to feel a food run was somewhat of an event, not a chore to be hurried, and he wasn't a morning person anyway.

The younger Hardy inevitably surveyed every restaurant and market for blocks when they were out of town, sniffing his way from one to the next before settling on a meal. Heaven help you if you were waiting on him and there happened to be free food samples, or worse yet samples plus a cute waitress to hand them out. He was as apt as not to return with a few crumbs in the bottom of a container and a handful of phone numbers.

Frank had no idea where his brother acquired his metabolism, but the amount of food it required was impressive, to say the least. Yeah, Joe was active, but it wasn't like Frank spent his days pretending to be a tree sloth, and he couldn't begin to eat all that. Joe might be gone another hour if he was lucky.

"Frank?" Joe pounded on the hotel door, presumably with a foot. "Open up, my hands are full."

Or not. Frank flattened morning tousled hair before opening the door with an exasperated sigh. Joe was never earlier than expected. Never. Except, apparently, today.

"Sheesh, I know raspberry filled doughnuts aren't your favorite, but they aren't that depressing." Joe frowned as Frank's face stretched longer. "Callie's gonna be awfully disappointed if Mom's right and your face sticks that way."

Joe dropped the bags and drink container onto the foot of the near bed, watching his sibling twist his expression into a manufactured smile. "Frank? You ok? I bought some grapefruit, too."

"Not to eat together, I hope." The older Hardy shook his head, the concept of confectionary powdered pastries and grapefruit puckering his face yet again.

"Hmm, I guess not. Doughnuts first, then."

Frank plundered the discarded sacks, steering Joe away from the table. "How do you figure that? Seems like it's fruit first, dessert last."

Joe snorted. "That might be true if doughnuts were dessert, but I see it more as decent edibles first, health food crud if we get desperate."

"Anybody listening would think you were the biggest couch potato in the world if they couldn't actually see you. You don't eat half as much junk food as you talk about."

"Can't." Joe punctuated the comment with an enormous jelly-filled munch. "Coach would skin me. But seeing as how he's not here…"

Frank selected the largest of the grapefruits and started to peel. "You know, you could have brought me blueberry muffins or cereal or something to go with this."

Joe popped the remainder of his third pastry into his sugar dusted mouth with a smirk. "I did. They're called doughnuts."

The blonde youth finished a fourth before deciding his sibling wasn't going to reply. "And once you polish off that diet nightmare excuse for a breakfast, you can tell me whatever it is I'm not supposed to be looking at in those files."

Frank snapped his head up, staring at his unfortunately perceptive brother. "But –"

"Come on, I wasn't really supposed to fall for a sudden intense interest in the culinary offerings of Chicago, was I? I picked Fruit Loops every day for like six years and you barely noticed. So spill."

#####

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to be continued...


	10. Chapter 10

**CHAPTER 10**

"BEN?!" Beth toppled through the door, foot sliding on the icy threshold, before righting herself with a quick grab at the wall.

Benjamin jumped, crossing the floor and wrapping an arm around her waist. He half led and half carried his wife and the shaking child beside her to the cabin's plaid chairs, the couch still occupied by a now calmer Joe.

"Ben? Help. You need to… help… me..." The words snuck out between the clatter of chattering teeth.

"Shh, Beth, I will. It's gonna be fine." Ben murmured reassurances, not at all sure they were accurate or even what they referenced, as he tucked a quilt around his wife and the girl in her lap. He cast a hopeful look at the door. Nothing. "Beth, honey, where's Laura?"

Amy curled into a ball the moment he spoke her sister's name, snuffled sobs muffled by the cotton cocoon.

Beth stroked Amy's blonde curls, squeezing her eyes shut tight against stray tears of her own. When she did look up, her ebony eyes stared straight ahead, unfocused. "I… couldn't find her. Not anywhere."

Ben drew a slow stuttered breath. The wind sliced through the predawn landscape outside, the once magical snow transformed into gale-driven daggers seeking admittance into vulnerable flesh. The sky still glittered with the clarity of stars only possible on a remote winter's night, but near the ground was another matter entirely. Crusted snow fall from days and even weeks past caught in the fierce air currents, violently hurled through copse and glade alike to plaster against any surface foolhardy enough to resist them. Somewhere in the midst of Mother Nature's worst, Laura was alone.

A low deep moan joined the whining of the wind. It Ben a moment to identify the source as Joe, and another to resolve the groaning into words. "My fault… all my fault… my… fault…."

"No... No. it. is. not. Stay here."

#####

#####

"I don't understand." Joe had both arms wrapped firmly around his torso, knees bouncing.

"Joe, I, uh…" Frank hesitated, noting the intense stare his sibling was directing at a completely blank wall. Torching the folders before Joe got back really hadn't been that bad of an idea, and it seemed better all the time. "I'm sure it isn't how it appears."

A snort was the only reply that he got for that commentary, the younger Hardy rising to cross the room. Apparently the white painted dry wall was even more fascinating on close inspection.

Frank picked up the only handwritten paper from the table, studying the familiar back-slanted scrawl. _Two o'clock, Harbor Mall. Meet me there, Fenton._ The words themselves weren't the issue; they could mean anything. Starting time for a matinee, early supper with Laura, heck, could be a haircut appointment. The problem was the date.

It was the day before the last political rally at the mall in Bayport, the day before they lost the convertible, the day before everything changed. The day before Iola died.

Written on a little slip of paper in their father's handwriting…

In a folder full of intelligence about the Assassins.

"Joe?" Frank stepped behind his brother, one hand coming to rest on the rigid muscles of his shoulder. "Come on. Sit back down and let's make sense out of the rest of this. You know Dad wouldn't…"

"Don't." The word was low and unexpectedly emotionless.

"Don't what?"

"Don't tell me to sit down. Don't make this better. Just don't." Joe's hand slipped into his pocket, fingers curling around something there.

Frank wished he could see whether the clutched talisman was an engraved pocket watch or a set of mangled keys. Both were there, secreted in the depths of Joe's pockets, both with an unbreakable hold on his sibling. Knowing which took precedence right now would give him a much better idea of how to proceed, but the carved expression on his brother's face gave away nothing. He tightened his grip on Joe's shoulder. "I..."

"I said don't." Joe spun out from under Frank's arm, shoving his sibling out of the way as he stormed to the balcony, slamming the French door behind him.

Frank stared after him, eventually sinking onto the small couch and burying both hands in his hair.

Fifteen minutes later he pulled a phone from his pocket, hitting the second number down.

"Dad? Hi, it's Frank. Can you come to the hotel? Now?"

#####

#####

"'Ello? Joey? Please… J-Joey?" Laura wriggled between the snowed covered pine boughs, working her way into the center of the tree. "I'm c-c-cold, Joey. Joey?"

The wind carried the words away, dissipating into the winter shrouded forest. Then even the slender form of the child disappeared, enfolded within an icy hug of frozen tree limbs and ever growing drifts.

"Joe? Amy? The stars are g-gone. Joey?" The child settled into the hollow at the base of the evergreen, exhausted. Small huffs of frosted breath slowed down and evened out, fear giving into fatigue, and then she was asleep.

#####

#####

Fenton thumbed through the sheaf of papers scattered over the hotel table, taking a long slow breath before locking eyes with his eldest. Frank appeared anxious, pleading almost. Fix this.

"I know how this looks…"

Frank smacked a hand down on the table, standing to pace in the same movement. "You're seriously going to start this conversation with 'I know how this looks?'"

"How would you suggest I start it then?" The older detective's words were harsh, frustrated, as he stood as well.

The pair glared at each other a long moment, Fenton the first one to drop his gaze to well-polished loafers. His fingers raked a familiar path through his hair before he spoke again. "I'm sorry. I'm not angry, I think you know that, or at least not with you. I just didn't want to talk about any of this."

Frank's expression remained pinched. "I'm thinking that isn't an option."

"No, I guess not. And to an extent, these papers are exactly what they look like." Fenton sat again, gesturing at Frank to do the same.

"Dad… I don't think…" Frank huffed out a breath. "I doubt that."

"Why?" Fenton held up a hand when his son started to speak, wanting to finish his thought. "Your investigative skills are superb, Frank, trust them. You know it's useful in any case to delineate what the evidence first tells you, even if that ultimately isn't the situation. So, first impression of all this… Forget it's me and let's hear it."

Frank hesitated, then picked up two of the myriad of typed sheets, Fenton's note, and a photograph; ignoring the offered seat and continuing to pace around the room. "Ok… ok, I can do that. I've got lists of Assassin contacts gathering information about the Walker campaign itinerary, and others with documented meetings between those same Assassins and Walker's most significant political rival, Coleman Harper. I have bank transactions leaving Harper's accounts and entering yours. I have a note you wrote arranging a meeting with the same cast of characters the day before Walker came to Bayport… and… I have this."

Fenton took the offered photo, jaw clenched as he examined it. He didn't need to look too closely considering he was one of the two figures seated at an outdoor café table, cherry blossoms obscuring part of the scene. Unfortunately it wasn't enough to camouflage the identity of the other man. Al-Rousasa.

"And?"

Frank's gaze wandered to the glass door blocking access to the balcony, and his brother, before he answered. "And this all makes it look like you were supervising security on the Walker campaign and meeting with people trying to kill him at the same time, but…"

"No buts. I told you, forget it's me and just throw the theory out there."

Another heavy sigh followed. "Then the most likely explanation for everything in these files is that you were selling inside information to the Assassins."

Fenton nodded slowly. "The most likely explanation or the only plausible one?"

"The only plausible one, but you wouldn't…"

"I did." Fenton allowed the words to sink in, then opened his mouth to explain. "I…"

He never made it past that first syllable.

A choked, plaintive sound from the balcony door way halted any further conversation.

"Joe?" Frank was the first to find his tongue ,rushing across the room to stand directly in front of his milk pale brother. Joe clutched the damning photo their father had just discarded.

"He did it." Joe's speech was more of a whisper to himself than any real attempt to address his sibling. "You said there was another explanation, had to be, but… he did it… he talked to them… met with them… took their money, and Iola-"

The words halted abruptly as the youngest Hardy sank to the floor, arms wrapping around bent knees.

"Joe? Son?" Fenton dropped to sit on the carpet. "I can't deny that, but there _was_ a reason."

Frank shuffled through the evidence, both literally and mentally. "A sting?"

Fenton nodded, acknowledging the statement without looking away from Joe. "The investigation went on for months. I was contacted two years ago with an offer to investigate some potential security leaks within the Network; information the Assassins utilized in a number of attacks that almost had to originate there. At first I declined, but when I started working for the Walker campaign, it became obvious that the leaks were going to impact that situation. I got back in touch with my contact and agreed to take the job."

"So you fed false information to the Assassins?" Frank had joined the pair sitting on the rug.

"Yes and no. Most of the meetings with the Assassins were an exchange of trivial information designed to convince dirty Network agents I could be trusted with their more nefarious activities." Fenton dipped his head, trying to get a better look at his younger son. "It worked, and I was able to identify a trio of agents that were selling confidential information."

"But the case wasn't closed if you were still arranging meetings the day before Philip Walker came to Bayport." Frank thought he had worked out the remainder of the scenario, but wanted to be sure.

"No, it wasn't. There still had to be at least one Network agent feeding intel to the Assassins organization. I met with an Assassin the day before the visit, trying to determine what security measures were breached. The rally still seemed secure, but someone must have tipped Al-Rousasa off. Once…" Fenton paused briefly, but found no way to avoid the words. "Once Iola died, I resigned. I couldn't pretend to work with them anymore."

"Why would they believe you were willing to work with them in the first place?" Frank's query sounded genuinely confused, not accusatory.

Fenton weighed his words carefully. "There are certain individuals that worked together before either the Assassins or the Network were established. They all learned a particular skill set; they just choose to put those skills to different uses now. A few of those people found private employment, a majority work in government, and a very few went the other way… became criminals… spies for other governments… and one… one… founded the Assassins."

Joe finally looked up. "You were one of the group. That's why the head of the Assassins believed the great, upstanding Fenton Hardy might be willing to cross the line. You know him."

Fenton flinched slightly from the cold, flat delivery of the words, but nodded. "Yes."

"Great, a former coworker of yours is head of the organization that murdered Iola. That's wonderful, Dad. Frank and I had to scrap and dig and sneak to even find out the Assassins existed and you've known about them for who knows how long?! Years? Always? And what does any of this have to do with Mom's plane crash, anyway? Wait, not a coworker, the police department wouldn't have taught you skills the Assassins would want. You're talking about ex-military guys, aren't you? A former fellow officer… even better. Were you planning on telling us any of this? Ever?!"

Joe stood, racing half way to the hotel room door before his father caught his arm.

"Stop, Joseph, and listen to me. First off, no, I was not planning on telling you or Frank anything about the Assassins, or the Network, if I could help it. It's not a life I want for you boys. Second, until Frank called me and showed me these folders, I didn't think there was a connection between last summer and the plane crash. And third, not a former co-worker… a former friend."

Tense cords of muscle shifted in the forearm beneath Fenton's hand, but Joe didn't pull away. Not yet, anyway. Instead he stared from father to brother, deep blue eyes radiating anger and beneath that an aching raw wound. One that was still too fresh to bear the revelations of the morning.

Fenton knew his child well enough to hear the questions he wasn't asking. Hurtful questions that wouldn't give Joe any peace until they were voiced. "It's ok, Joe, ask whatever you need to know."

The anger lessened a notch, but the calm that swirled in behind it didn't seem any better. "Fine. Did Walker know you were playing a government sting game using his campaign as the chess board?"

Fenton grimaced but shook his head. "No. It would have introduced too many variables."

"This friend of yours. Do you still know where he is?"

Frank took a step toward them. "Joe, Dad wouldn't hide a…"

"No, Frank, it's fine. He needs to know. No, I don't."

"The Network agent that put together this file… obviously he's investigating your involvement with the Assassins, so he wasn't aware of the sting. Does his name or Carmen Feland's mean anything to you?"

"No."

"Hmmm." Joe tugged his arm free and stepped toward the door.

#####

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to be continued...


	11. Chapter 11

**CHAPTER 11**

 _"_ _Did Walker know you were playing a government sting game using his campaign as the chess board?"_

 _Fenton grimaced but shook his head. "No. It would have introduced too many variables."_

 _"_ _This friend of yours. Do you still know where he is?"_

 _Frank took a step toward them. "Joe, Dad wouldn't hide a…"_

 _"_ _No, Frank, it's fine. He needs to know. No, I don't."_

 _"_ _The Network agent that put together this file… obviously he's investigating your involvement with the Assassins, so he wasn't aware of the sting. Does his name or Carmen Feland's mean anything to you?"_

 _"_ _No."_

 _"_ _Hmmm." Joe tugged his arm free and stepped toward the door._

 _"_ _Is that everything you want to know?"_

 _"_ _Yeah." Joe started into the hallway. "Actually, no. Did you bring this down on Iola, Dad? On Mom!?"_

 _The door slammed closed before Fenton could force out a whispered answer. "I wish I knew, Joey, I wish I knew."_

Fenton sighed, shifting in his chair as the last five minutes he'd spent with his sons played through his head yet again. Unfortunately, he wasn't very successful at keeping a worried frown off his face.

"Fenton?"

The detective immediately tried to arrange his features into something more pleasant, or at the very least less revealing. It didn't work; the owner of that soft inquiry knew him far too well.

"What's wrong?" Laura stretched cautiously within the confines of the hospital bed, every muscle protesting the movement.

"Nothing." He captured his wife's uninjured hand, brushing a soft kiss against the back of it. "I didn't know you were awake."

"Um-hmm, for a few minutes now." Laura studied her husband's features, beginning to frown herself. A stifled cough finally broke free, occupying the next few minutes before she could speak again. "You want to try another answer besides nothing?"

A hint of a rueful smile transformed his face. "Not buying it, huh?"

"Not especially."

"A conversation I had with the boys this morning could have gone a lot better. I'm reasonably certain Joe isn't speaking to me right now."

Laura's expression wavered somewhere between 'why not?' and 'I'm sure it's all fine.' "Want to tell me what happened?"

"No… or yes, but you don't need anything else to worry about right now." Fenton stood, gazing out the eighth floor window as if his children might magically appear.

"Fen…" Laura pushed herself up a fraction in the bed, waiting out the next round of hacking. "I'm going to worry less if I know what's going on. Besides, right now I am tired, sore, and a little breathless. I'm not worried… unless I should be?"

Fenton eyed the molded vinyl chair beside her bed with distaste, but settled back into it, again entwining his fingers with his wife's. "The boys started digging into the plane crash and came across some information I would have preferred they hadn't."

"About the crash?" Laura sounded curious, but not unduly alarmed.

"No, about me." Fenton thanked every lucky star he could name and a few he suddenly invented that he hadn't hidden everything from Laura the previous year. Oh, she didn't know about the Network per se, but she knew he'd been working for the government as a double agent when everything went wrong, and that the group he'd infiltrated was responsible for the bomb that nearly claimed their sons. "About the Walker assignment and the undercover work that came before it."

Laura paled. Fenton had wanted to tell the boys everything about the incident immediately after the car explosion occurred, but she had argued against it. She convinced him Joe couldn't handle anything else on top of Iola's death and maybe, somewhere, she had hoped there was a glimmer of their childhoods left to preserve. Joe's sullen and often dangerous behavior coupled with Frank's guilty mix of grief and relief over the next few months had dissuaded her of that notion, but by then it seemed too late to discuss the situation. It was only in the last month or two that her boy's previous personalities had re-emerged. "I'm sorry."

"Me too." Fenton leaned over the bed railing, kissing Laura's cheek before sliding down to her neck with a gentle caress. "I truly thought I was protecting them."

"You were… once they think about the whole story, they'll understand that. They may not like it, but they'll understand it."

Fenton stiffened. "They still don't know the whole story. The conversation never got that far."

"Why?"

"Joe stormed out and Frank stared at me like I had two heads for about three seconds, then took off after him. I wish they hadn't figured this out."

"No you don't. You wanted to tell them from the start and I was still holding onto the idea that our babies are little. You'd think the six foot figures practically gnawing the wood from the breakfast table every morning would remind me they're nearly men." She scoffed at his disbelieving look. "You think I'm kidding? I'm lucky to get the plates back uneaten from those two! It should be blatantly obvious they're growing up, but I still see giggling little faces peaking around the corners of the stairs, or swinging from the trees in the yard."

Fenton grinned softly in spite of the circumstances, a million wistful remembrances swirling through his head. "It really hasn't been that long."

"Not to us. For them that's a lifetime ago, and generally you remember that better than I do." Laura's tone matched his melancholy and she made a visible effort to return to the present. "So… I think you mean you wish that they hadn't figured this out right now, not that you wish they hadn't figured it out. Somehow I doubt airheaded sons would suit you."

A choked chuckle followed. "I suppose not. Can boys be airheads?"

A mock glare complete with raised singed eyebrow followed that little commentary. "Fenton Hardy! Are you suggesting only girls have brainless empty skulls?"

"No!" The amused detective rapidly back-peddled. "I've just never heard the term used that way. I'm not sure what the male equivalent is?... surfer dude? No that's not right, our sons do surf and it certainly hasn't made them stupid. Um… slacker? That's more lazy than devoid of thought… I don't really know…"

Laura planted two fingers on his lips to stall any further ponderment, concealing a wince at the motion with soft laugh and a wink.

"What?" Fenton mumbled around her hand, kissing it in the process.

"You're still cute when you ramble to avoid talking about something." She smiled at his mildly embarrassed flush, then added a more serious thought. "And our sons still love you."

"I know they do."

"Sounds like you have a phone call to make then." Laura gave him a subtle nudge toward the door.

"Yeah, I do." _But not to my boys._

 _#####_

 _#####_

"Laura?! Lau-ra?"

"Lauuuuuuura?"

"Laura?"

The alternating calls cut through the frigid mountain air, each query carried forth in a white puff framed by the wedged illumination of a flashlight.

"Laura?"

"L-Lauuuuura?"

A barely audible plop marked a stumble in the snow and Benjamin swung the arc of his light backwards. "Joe? Come on; let me walk you back to the cabin before you get any colder."

"C-Can't, sir. I have to find her." His chattering voice abruptly rose in volume once more. "Lauuu-uuu-ra?"

Benjamin considered pushing the matter, but he knew it wouldn't do any good. No more than it had when he'd told the injured child to stay inside in the first place. Instead he gave a sharp nod and wordlessly pulled Joe to his feet, relieved when the boy accepted it.

"Laura? Lauuura?"

"Lau-ra? Lauuura?"

The plaintive calls droned on, the wind carefully consigning each plea into oblivion.

#####

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"Who does he think he is, anyway!? He can't just call here with a bunch of implied threats and expect us to…"

"Elias, calm down for goodness sake." Arthur Gray, the Network's chief of field operatives, shook his head at his subordinate before propping his feet on the edge of a worn desk. "I'm certain Fenton Hardy knows exactly who he is without any input from us. And those weren't threats. The man was simply expressing his opinion, albeit somewhat firmly. He won this round. In the greater scheme of things, this isn't a problem."

"He won this round? You cannot seriously tell me you are afraid of confronting the man?" Elias Dahl sputtered out the accusation, his usual calculating demeanor notably absent.

"I am neither seriously nor jokingly afraid of Fenton – or you. I'll admit I hoped to have him in the fold prior to beginning new operations against the Assassins, but with his sons aware of what happened over the last two years I won't be able to pressure him into it like before. There are other avenues."

A smirk crossed Elias's face. "Like Frank and Joe?"

An exasperated sigh escaped the older man. "Only if absolutely necessary; I was referring to trained agents. I don't prefer to work with children."

"Fenton and I weren't much older when you originally met us."

Gray snorted."Don't remind me. Anyway, the circumstances were markedly different."

"The uh, circumstances are going to be markedly different when Fenton finds out you didn't keep your promise to stay away from his sons. You've had them involved in cases up to their eyeballs for months."

The older agent was only slightly uncomfortable with the truth of the accusation. "The Assassins decided to involve the boys, not me."

"From the sound of that phone call, Fenton isn't going to see it that way." Elias raised an eyebrow at his boss, watching.

"As I said, I'm not afraid of the man."

"With all due respect Arthur, I served with him five years. That may not be your smartest decision. I still think he spends as much time investigating us as he does the Assassins."

Arthur Gray shrugged, his deceptively unassuming frame blending into the tweed of his chair. "You don't like the man. You made that abundantly clear twenty years ago and I dare say it's mutual. That's fine, I don't foresee Fenton and I heading out to a ballgame any time soon, either. Still, when he has to work with us, he manages to be professional and I would suggest you attempt the same. If he wants to investigate me, so be it. I do my job the only way it can be done and he begrudgingly accepts that. Now pack a bag for Chicago and do yours – and for goodness sake avoid all of the Hardys while you're there."

#####

#####

"Why'd you call?"

Fenton snorted. "Why did I call? No hello? And I heard you were such a polite child. Beth must have skipped a phone etiquette lesson or two. No 'Happy Thanksgiving' greeting?"

"It's already more than a week past." The other man's tone sounded more relaxed now. "I take it the joking means my sister is ok? You had to know tracking me down was going to start all kinds of horrid scenarios running through my head."

That sobered Fenton instantly. "I'm sorry, Joseph. I didn't realize you knew Laura was on that plane or I would have started the conversation there. She's in the hospital, but she's getting much better. As a matter of fact I'm in the lobby now."

"I can be in Chicago in less than twenty four hours, with a little rearranging."

"Really, there's no need. I can only imagine what sort of rearranging that would entail or you'd already be here, and she's going to be fine. Besides, you said you were never spending Thanksgiving with me again."

Joseph McCullough smiled finally, the warmth coming through in his reply. "No, I said I was never spending Thanksgiving with Gertrude again. That was a long time ago, Fenton. You're sure Laura's going to be alright?"

"Positive. Another few days in the hospital and then we'll celebrate a belated holiday."

"I'm still trusting you to protect her, you know." There was more than a hint of teasing in his voice. "Although there were definitely times when I thought the only thing she needed protection from was you."

Fenton felt the tips of his ears turn red, even twenty five years after the fact. How was he supposed to guess Joe would be such a neat freak while home on liberty? Of course, Joe's apparent need to immediately hang up his coat in the closet wouldn't have been such big deal had Fenton not been in said closet at the time… kissing Joe's sister…and trying to get his shirt back on… and finding out his watch band was somehow stuck on her bra strap…

"Not one of my finer moments…"

"Maybe not then, but Laura found it pretty funny after you left. Once she realized I wasn't going to tell Dad, anyway."

"After I left? More like after you chased me out of the house." Fenton laughed.

"I had to, it's in the big brother rule book… and I did let you back in once it got cold that night."

"Yes you did. Then you spent every single second of every single day with me until we went back to the base."

"I figured you were serious enough about Laura to find a way around it."

"I did…" Fenton paused, a few private memories surfacing. "I married her."

"See, I knew you were my favorite brother-in-law for a reason."

"Yeah, I'm your only brother-in-law. At least at the moment." That had been subject to change without notice over the years, depending on Amy's mood of the moment.

"As glad as I am to hear from you, I suspect this isn't a social chat. And if it isn't about Laura…"

"I just got off the telephone with Arthur Gray."

A gruff mutter followed. "Well there's a name to suck all the life out of a conversation. What did he want?"

"Actually, I called him. Frank and Joe found some documentation that a Network agent was investigating me and that I had done some work for the Assassins. They put two and two together and now I need a favor."

"I'm sorry Fenton. I know you only agreed to that whole scheme because I asked you, so name it."

"No, I agreed to it to have enough dirt on the Network to keep their hooks out of my sons, and I reminded Arthur of that today."

"That's not the God and Country speech we memorized all those years ago, my friend. Not going cynical on me, are you?" Joseph was teasing, to a point.

"About God and Country, no. About the Network, absolutely. Their tactics aren't any more acceptable to me now than when I turned them down two decades ago."

"You turned me down two decades ago, too." Joseph reminded Fenton of that fact, nothing more.

"That was about deciding to have a family, you know that. We wanted different things out of life. Can you honestly imagine Laura sitting home worrying about me anymore than she already does?"

The other man thumbed through his battered wallet, gazing at pictures of nephews and nieces. Not sons or daughters. When he replied, his voice was slightly tight. "No… and we did make different choices. What do you need?"

"Joe assumed the Network agents investigating me weren't aware I was acting with their superiors' blessing. I doubt that's the case given how much information hit the fan when I resigned the job."

"But if the agent knows you were never working with terrorists, then there's no point compiling a folder on you…" The older man stopped abruptly. "Crud. Frank and Joe found our other dirty agent."

"Exactly. And I don't want them involved in this. There's a name you need, too. Carmen Feland. Can you bat clean up on this time?"

"I'll take care of it."

#####

#####

"Lau-uura?"

"Lauuuuuuuura?"

Benjamin and Joe were both exhausted and stumbling, and the older of the two was giving serious thought to forcing a return to the cabin. They hadn't actually been searching very long, but the night was brutal. If they went back, he could contact the local sheriff to form a search party; return to the mountain at first light. It sounded reasonable on the surface, but he knew if he left without finding Laura now, the child would die. It was as clear as that. Except… except maybe staying out in the ever increasing gale was simply condemning all three of them rather than one. He flicked his light over Joe's bleak features once again and decided he could make it a few more steps. They both could.

The clear sky had been replaced by dense cloud cover, the gusting wind changing the weather at an alarming rate. Fresh snow was now joining the already blowing drifts, erasing the pair's tracks behind them.

"Laura? Lauuuuuuuura?" Either the sudden blizzard was blunting the sound of Benjamin's calls or he was losing his voice on top of everything else. Probably both.

"Lauuuuura?"

"This way! Sir! This way!" Joe slipped and tumbled his way toward a stand of trees. "Please. This w-way."

The huge conifers themselves were barely visible in the storm and Benjamin could see nothing to suggest that the missing child was there as opposed to anywhere else. Still, Joe sounded so certain. "Ok. I'm coming."

Five trees ringed a smaller central evergreen, snow laden branches sweeping all the way to the ground. As soon as they stepped within the circle, the ferocity of the night calmed by half, the trees providing natural shelter. Benjamin shivered, grateful for the respite if nothing else, and joined Joe in allowing his light to wander among the lower limbs.

One of which was broken.

It took a full minute for that to register in either of their mostly frozen minds, but once it did Joe was desperately wriggling toward the tree trunk, Benjamin close behind.

A snow covered mound huddled against the bark, ice glittering on pale, closed lashes and frozen curls plastered against china doll skin.

Benjamin dropped his supply pack and stripped off a glove, amazed that Joe had somehow already maneuvered the frosted bundle into his lap. Holding his breath, he slipped a hand inside Laura's hood, fingers seeking a life affirming pulse.

He missed on his first try, but it didn't matter. The child's neck was still somewhat warm, and his hand most definitely was not. She jolted slightly, cracked lips parting.

"J-J-Joey?"

#####

#####

"Dad?"

Fenton looked up from the paper he'd been pretending to read. Apparently, he'd made it through the first four sections.

"Frank. Come sit down." He waved at another of the cheap hospital chairs, suspicious that his son adored them as much as he did. "Did you, ah, did you catch up with Joe?"

His older son nodded, gazing at his lightly dozing mother and uncertain how much to say. "He just needs another minute."

"Fair enough." Fenton reached toward Frank, hand hesitantly settling on his forearm. "You and your brother are growing up, both as young men and as investigators. Some of my habits in how much I share with you probably need to change to reflect that. I never meant for Joe, or you, to feel tricked or betrayed by what was going on."

"I don't feel betrayed, Dad. Excluded, maybe, or marginalized. I can't speak for Joe."

"I'm sorry." Fenton gave the arm beneath his fingers a quick squeeze and released it. "And I'm proud of you, both of you."

"For what?" Joe's newly arrived voice chimed in from the door. He didn't sound angry anymore. More dejected and resigned.

"For coming to talk this through, for one." Fenton stood, stretching. "Laura's asleep. Maybe we could move this out to the alcove?"

Both of his sons nodded, stepping toward the door. Joe hadn't completely entered the room and was naturally the first one out; turning the precise opposite direction of where he'd agreed to go.

"I'm going to grab some caffeine. Anybody else?"

He got an answering yes on both counts. This wasn't likely to be a short conversation.

Fenton stooped to kiss his slumbering wife on the cheek, the motion interrupted by utter bedlam.

CRACK!

At the first shot a chunk of the lobby wall shattered, fragments of plaster scattering almost as fast as the panicked staff did. Fenton caught a glimpse of Joe diving behind a waiting room sofa even as he shoved Frank and tried to roll on top of Laura. A second gunshot came from the opposing hallway, thudding into the wall behind them as he drew his own sidearm from a shoulder holster.

Frank dodged his father's initial attempt to knock him to the floor, instinctively knowing Fenton needed help with Laura. Together they jerked her to the floor behind the bed, resolutely ignoring both her whimper and rounds number three and four as they crouched over her. The shots seemed a little farther away.

Unfortunately the same couldn't be said for the rapid fire volley that followed. Neither Fenton nor Frank could determine of number of shots fired after that, but there were at least three shooters involved based on direction.

Observation windows shattered and rained down, causing both detectives to duck their heads even lower. Fenton risked reaching up to snag the corner of a blanket, seeking some protection from the raining glass.

"Damn." His father's sharply curtailed hiss whipped Frank's head around in the sudden unexpected quiet.

The teen's eyes widened at the crimson patch spreading on his father's crisp white sleeve. "Dad?"

The elder Hardy had his eyes clenched shut and had begun to pant, but he shook his head, mouthing a reply. "I'm fine. Wait."

The pair mentally counted off a full minute of the eerie silence, Fenton reassuring Laura with a tightly grasped hand.

They reached the sixty second mark simultaneously, Frank raising an open hand and then his index finger in question.

Fenton shook his head at the prearranged communication and lifted his first two fingers instead.

Frank understood his father's signal perfectly, compliments of childhood lessons he'd always hoped not to use.

 _I can wait… Find your brother._

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 _to be continued..._


	12. Chapter 12

Thank you so much to everyone who is reading and reviewing! We're in the last few chapters of this one, although most of these characters get at least minor mentions in later stories.

 **CHAPTER 12**

White. Not pristine or pure or innocent. Not at all, yet still mockingly white. Blinding, obscuring, all-encompassing oblivion; a frigid white every bit as lethal and insidious as the darkest ebony of an abyss. Gale driven death in an infinite deluge of ice.

Benjamin clutched the rough bark of the limb beneath his palms, an anchor to the mountain terrain he could no longer see. In the few minutes that he tended to Laura and Joe, the world outside their tiny stand of trees had vanished, lost to the fierce whirling alabaster of the blizzard. Whether the warmth of the cabin, the hearth… Beth… whether that was thirty feet behind him or a thousand miles ahead, it didn't matter. It was gone.

"S-Sir?" Joe called out from behind him, struggling to be heard over a mere three or four feet. "I can carry her, sir, if you're ready to go back."

"We can't." Benjamin trudged back to the pair of children, both huddled in the meager protection of the pines. "The storm's gotten worse. We need to stay here."

"But… we can't. Laura will freeze, sir. She needs to be warm. Please." Joe slid from beneath his sister and stood, peering beyond the encircling branches. It was a long moment before he spoke again, and when he did a tremble younger than his ten years invaded his voice. "Sir? I… I can't tell which way… l… don't know where to go."

Benjamin wanted to lie. He wanted to start with there, there it's ok and keep plowing through every platitude any human every spouted, hopefully finishing up with the ant and the rubber tree plant song about the same time he led their Currier and Ives troupe through the cabin door. But he couldn't. This wasn't the idyllic snow of yesteryear's postcards, or even yesterday's skiing lesson. This was a full on blizzard, and the only sure fire rule of outdoor blizzard survival was don't be outside in a blizzard. Funny how much more humorous that line had seemed sitting in a heated classroom discussing wilderness survival.

"There's no way to see where we're going, Joe. We're going to have to stay here." Benjamin prayed that sounded more reassuring than he felt. "When the snow lets up, we can walk back. It will be light then, anyway, so it will be easier."

Joe slowly nodded and sank into the snow, clicking off his flashlight. "You really think that will work?"

Benjamin considered his response and decided this kid deserved a straight answer. "I hope so, Joe. If not, well, they'll come looking for us tomorrow and we can hunker down. I have some supplies in the pack."

"Like what?"

"Some blankets, a little food, an avalanche shovel, and an axe." Ben began drawing several of the named items out of his pack, starting with the short handled tools.

"An avalanche? We're going to have an avalanche?"

"Joe, whoa, slow down. We are not going to have an avalanche. It's just what they call these little shovels. We can dig a snow cave with it if we have to."

Rapid breaths slowly returned to a calmer tempo. Apparently the idea of an avalanche had pushed the child over the edge.

"Where do we dig?"

Ben shook his head, then realized Joe probably couldn't see it. "We don't. The snow needs to be at least four or five feet deep for a snow cave. There probably is that much outside the tree ring, but leaving what little cover we have isn't a good idea. We can take turns digging in the morning if we still need a shelter."

"Both of us digging would be faster, sir."

"True, but I only have one shovel and someone should always be outside of a snow cave when you dig it. That way if it collapses the outside person unearths everybody."

"I guess so. We won't need it, though, right? I mean, we'll walk back to the cabin in the morning anyhow."

Benjamin tried to swallow his doubts. "Right. For now, slide Laura over onto this blanket and cover both of you with the second one."

Joe wanted to insist that he could do something more to help, but he was dizzy and felt wretched from head to toe. So instead he carefully lifted his sister, ignoring his own aches and cuts as best he could. The silver material draped over the ground didn't look like much of a blanket, more like a cloth version of heavy duty tin foil, but he didn't argue. It would keep Laura dry, and even his limited outdoor skills included that survival tip. He looked up from her drowsy mumbles at the ring of a small hatchet on wood.

Ben was hacking off several lower branches of one of the trees, making certain the one he was thinning wasn't facing the prevailing wind. He wanted as many limbs blocking that direction as possible. He added some already downed boughs into his collection as well, piling each one against a nearly horizontal branch about four feet off the ground. Before long he had a reasonable lean-to constructed over the children.

"Hey, don't do that."

Joe snapped his head up instantly at the command. "S-Sir? I'm sorry. I'm not sure… uh… Don't eat the snow or don't get Laura warm?"

Benjamin counted off to five in his head, reminding himself how Joe was likely to interpret any sort of a reprimand. "Either. Well, do keep Laura warm, of course, but don't rub on her face like that. If she has any frostbite at all that actually makes the situation worse. Same thing with eating the snow. It seems like a good idea, but it actually makes you colder and more dehydrated. I have some water if you're thirsty."

Joe hesitated, then took the water bottle. "I don't understand. Snow is just water."

"Yeah, but your body has to heat it. That cools you down more and you lose calories to the process… which can make you dehydrated." Benjamin suddenly remembered he was talking to a ten year old. "You know what dehydrated is, right?"

"What? Oh. Yes sir, I do. I've been dehydrated a few times when I didn't drink."

"When you didn't drink? Why wouldn't you…?" Benjamin stopped mid-sentence, realizing the answer probably wasn't going to be the sort of story he was prepared to hear. "Anyway, yes, it's when you don't take in enough water. If we actually do run out of bottled water, we can drink the snow; we should just warm it first."

The small hard bottom liner of Benjamin's pack was extracted next; the piece made of metal rather than the fiber board found in packs not designed for emergency use. The metal was thin enough that it could be fashioned into a scoop if needed, but for now it was pressed into service as a dry spot where Ben could try to start a fire.

Unfortunately, Ben rapidly discovered that having a survivalist pack designed for mountain men did not necessarily magically transform the owner into a bona fide mountain man. He'd made a respectable lean-to, he'd thought to bring the bag with blankets, water, and food, and he had a lighter. However, no amount of out of date Boy Scout lessons were going to get the storm drenched kindling lying about to burn in a fierce wind. They'd be spending the night without a fire. He could try again at daybreak. Maybe more flammable materials would visible then, although with the growing drifts that seemed unlikely, but maybe. Maybe the moon really was Swiss cheese, too. Simply surviving until morning was about as likely.

Ben swept that thought away as quickly as he could, twirling the remainder of a thin rope around in his hand. He'd used the majority of it tying branches together and a small portion in the failed fire attempt, but a good length was left. Visibility wasn't quite zero within their tree ring, but it was close. Certainly if anyone wandered beyond the circle they'd be instantly lost. Recalling stories of both mountain expeditions and early settlers in the region using rope guidelines during winter storms, he came to a decision.

"We should link up so we can't get separated." The eldest member of the group looped the cotton cord around his waist, tying it off in a hitched knot. He proceeded to Laura as he talked. "It's always safer in this sort of weather if you aren't alone."

He offered the other end to Joe, but the child stared straight ahead, expression vacant.

"Joe?" Benjamin leaned closer in concern. Drowsiness and confusion could both be signs of hypothermia, and he was worried enough about Laura's ongoing slumber. Not to mention that Joe was injured to start with. If he was dazed, too… "Joe? Can you tie this?"

"S-sir?" The word was a choked whisper. Maybe the cold was taking its toll.

"Can you tie this around your waist or do you need help?"

This time the small sob was unmistakable, even with nature's ongoing wailing. Joe pushed Laura behind him, then mouthed a silent reply. "H-help."

Ben rocked back on his heels, suddenly nauseated. The boy before him was a million miles away, both hands held out toward the rope, wrists crossed and offered up.

The rope fell to the ground like a reviled serpent and Benjamin lurched away from the children, forgetting the loop around Laura until a moan abruptly reminded him. He hacked through the cord in a panic, ending up on his hands and knees battling a very rebellious stomach.

Finally deciding his dinner of hours before wasn't going to make an unwelcome reappearance, he settled into the snow as far from the siblings as he could get, dropping his head to his hands.

"Joe… I… I didn't realize… I… God kid, I am so sorry. I'm sorry. I would never… I promised you, remember… I'm so, so sorry."

The tense silence stretched on over an hour, nearly unendurable until Joe finally spoke. "Sir? I know maybe this all seems, uh, sort of hopeless, but the thing is, um, I'm sort of good at getting through hopeless and, ah, coming out the other end. So if you wanted to, ah, sit over here with us, sir, and not freeze to death… um, that would be okay…"

#####

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"Don't move!"

Frank froze, both hands in front of him, palms open wide. His eyes still roamed the waiting room he'd just stepped into, but the gentlemen in front of him were very inspiring in keeping the remainder of his muscles imitating statuary. Well, not the men themselves so much, although one of the pair was of an imposing size. Really it was the larger caliber automatic weaponry they possessed that did the trick.

"Everybody on the floor stay exactly where you are. Everybody standing drop to your knees, now. Hands on your head. NOW!"

Frank dropped, fingers lacing together over brunette waves.

His gaze still managed to pick out a worn red sneaker and the hem of faded jeans sticking out from under a leather sofa. The sofa had a dozen or more holes in it, stuffing and springs clearly visible. So far the sneaker appeared intact. Still, the fact that it was all Frank could see spiked his heart rate as much as the well-armed men. _Joe._

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 _to be continued..._


	13. Chapter 13

**hCHAPTER 13**

 _It's official… my behind is frozen to the ground…_ Ben shifted, suppressing a groan. He'd done what he could to create a cocoon, packing snow up the sloped logs of his lean-to and then mounding it in front of the open side. Somewhere after 'I'm getting a backache' and before 'dead people probably feel better than I do' the snow wall climbed higher than the log shelter itself, only a tiny gap between the branch tips and the packed ice allowing air into their home for the night. He sat flat on one of the spread thermal blankets, bent legs straddled to allow Joe to sit between them. The boy was facing him, hunched forward to lean against his chest, with Laura snuggled in the middle. She was so much smaller than Ben, or even Joe, and the bitter cold threatened her the most. Hopefully the shared warmth would be enough.

Benjamin clasped the remaining blankets around the trio, praying for morning. Both of the children had long since fallen asleep, but he refused to allow himself the rest; refused to consider that he might be alone when he awoke.

Ben and Beth had wanted children for so long, the yearning nearly consuming their lives, but he didn't feel like a stellar parent earlier tonight when that mantle crashed. Maybe he just didn't know how to think like a father. If he'd found the right thing to say… if he hadn't scared Joe… if he'd stopped Laura from running… Maybe they all wouldn't be slowly freezing to death in the middle of the worst night of his life. If there was anything else he could do right now… anything… He'd die in a heartbeat for the kids huddled in his arms if it would give them even another single hour…

Huh. Maybe he thought like a father after all.

#####

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"Federal Agents. Stay exactly where you are until my partner checks your ID."

Outwardly Frank didn't shift a millimeter, but he felt some of the knotted tension in his spine slink away. A nurse to his left was cleared first, then one of the armed men approached him. No one else in the room was upright.

"Take your left hand off your head and hand me your wallet. Slowly!"

Frank complied, extending the worn leather object. The barked voice wasn't encouraging, but at least the barrel of the man's rifle wasn't pointed directly at him any longer. "Federal agents? You could have said that first, you know."

"Shut up, Mr…." The agent hesitated, flipping open the wallet in his hand. "Mr. Hardy. I have bodies on three different floors of this hospital. That means I get to start all the conversations."

"Police officers, including FBI, are required to identify themselves." Frank wasn't sure why this was so imminently important to him, but it was. FBI agents would have said as much, meaning these guys were almost certainly Network or CIA. Terrific. His eyes darted to the couch. "Please. I need to…"

"Police officers and FBI yes, us no. Stop talking." The second agent shuffled closer, weapon raised.

"Is he a problem?" The taller man gestured with his chin at Frank, but the first one shook his head.

"Not the kind you mean. He's on the state troopers' list of patients and family members. Take him to the sixth floor lobby with that bunch and keep all of them quiet until we can sort this out."

The taller one started to nod, then did a double take at the indicated name on the roster, quickly muttering something unheard to his partner.

"Is that so? Hmph. Looks like a regular ol' kid to me." He pointed to a relatively undamaged chair in the corner. "Sit down over there, Hardy, and don't go anywhere."

"My brother is under that sofa. Please, I have to see if he's ok." Frank glanced from one to the other, hoping to see a glimmer of understanding. Joe still hadn't moved. Best case scenario, he was being extraordinarily obedient to the order not to, but he still would have found some way to signal Frank. Besides, extraordinarily obedient? Joe?

"Go Sit Now! Man I hate kids. You do get that Feds aren't the only gunmen in this building right now?" He waved a hand at the shattered glass and pocked marked walls.

Frank rose; jaw clenched tight, and edged toward his sibling. "You do get that letting a sixteen year old civilian die under some random furniture isn't going to move your resume to the top of your superior's genius stack?"

"Die? You don't know that he's even shot, but you will be if you don't put your backside in that chair, now!"

Frank considered defying the pair, semi-automatic weapons or no, until a heavy hand clamped on his shoulder, shoving him backward.

"Sit."

Frank stilled his attempts to twist away as the familiar state trooper entered, heading directly for the bullet riddled sofa. The officer had his service weapon drawn, bending to flip the damaged furniture off the form beneath.

"Aw crap!" The officer instantly had both hands back around his gun, arms extended and taut.

Joe Hardy's wide blue eyes stared back at him from a pale, sweat streaked face. The teen heaved beneath a huge man, one paw of a hand clamped across his mouth and another clasping a handgun - the barrel of which was currently leaving a firm print on the underside of Joe's chin.

"Stand up and let the boy go." All three officials spread out, forming a loose perimeter around the tangled bodies on the floor.

"Think… we… all…" Gasps interspersed the behemoth's words as he wallowed himself upright, dragging Joe with him, "know… that's… not going to happen."

Frank winced when one of the man's elbows audibly slammed into Joe's ribs on the way up. A sharp sting in his toe as he waded across the debris strewn floor was his first clue that he'd moved forward. It wasn't intentional, more of an automatic compulsion to eliminate any distance between himself and his endangered sibling. Frank logically accepted that you don't walk toward an armed maniac; it isn't exactly a difficult concept to grasp. It was just that logic and action were on permanent disconnect when it came to his brother.

He forced himself to halt, well aware any ill-timed move might cost his brother's life. He'd get a chance. He had to. He reluctantly retreated to the chair by the stairwell, sitting and making certain his hands stayed in view.

The large man whispered something to Joe, receiving a clipped nod from the blonde teen before removing his hand from Joe's mouth. The arm dropped, wrapping around the youth's chest instead, but the gun never wavered. The change in position revealed the side of captor and hostage… and the swath of deep, drenching red soaking both.

"Joe?" Frank mentally cursed both the tremble in his question and the fact that he had spoken at all. No one in the room could afford a distraction… unless it was an intentional one.

"There isn't a way out. Let him go." The first agent repeated his demand, moving closer.

"No." The gunman swayed, closing his eyes briefly. "I'm going down those stairs, and my new friend Joe here is coming with me."

"You're obviously injured. We'll get you help if you let him go. Drop the gun."

"Right. You want to help me. Why would I believe that?" The man tightened his grip, earning a grunt from Joe, and turned away from the officers. "Hey, you! Frank, right? I have to thank you for giving me Joey here's name. Stubborn fool wouldn't tell me. You open that door or I'm going to a put bullet through your brother's brain."

Frank shakily stood, trying and failing to catch Joe's eye. The gunman had his head shoved too far back for that. He curled his fingers around the metal door handle.

"Quit stalling, kid. Open it! Now!"

"Put the gun down!" The taller agent tried to re-assert control of the situation, but Joe's captor ignored him, continuing to stare at Frank.

Frank yanked the heavy metal door open, wracking his brain for a plan. Any plan. Any second now…

"Good, Frank, good boy. You just might get your brother back with a few breaths left in him. Now keep your hands up and stay right there." The gunman slid along the wallpaper, trailing crimson and blocking any attack from behind until he reached the doorway. "You know, though, you don't look… all that happy… Yeah, I could see that… I wouldn't want my brother back either."

The man staggered as he moved into the open doorframe and lost the support of the wall, a tiny movement, but it was enough. Enough to slide the barrel of the gun left half an inch, grazing along Joe's jaw rather than forcing his chin upward.

Frank immediately nudged his foot forward, tugging the doormat and converting the tiny stagger into a true stumble at the same instant Joe went limp, tangling his legs with his attackers.

The second the gargantuan man pitched forward, Frank grabbed for Joe's arm, but he ended up with only a handful of stained blue t-shirt. His brother went head over heels down the tile staircase, the yelps and slams of the fall punctuated by a single shot halfway down.

"JOE?" Frank thundered down the steps, the three officers close behind him. "JOE!?"

The gunman and teen were in a random heap at the bottom of the stair, a faint twitching coming from somewhere in the pile.

"JOE?"

"What?" The word was a bit breathless, but it was distinctly Joe Hardy.

Frank spotted the gun on the floor and kicked it to the side, some portion of him noting the trooper bending to pick it up. "You ok?"

The answer came from under the twisted body of the gunman. "Yeah. Spectacular."

The agents were pulling their quarry off the younger Hardy by now and at least a dozen pairs of feet were approaching, police radio static guiding their way, but Frank was oblivious. He slid down the stairwell wall, thudding down hard on his behind. He needed to get a hand on his brother.

The gunman let out a squealed wail as he was lifted onto a stretcher, dark eyes staring at Frank as if this entire situation were his fault. A new red blotch was overtaking his shoulder. "You… tripped me."

The older Hardy glared back. "Yeah… You might not want your brother back, but I'm sort of attached to mine."

"Don't be. We missed, but don't be." The stretcher disappeared down the stairs.

Joe pushed his way up, spine propped heavily against the stucco. It took him less than a moment to start swatting at Frank's searching hands.

"Stay here, we'll send the medics back up." The taller Fed patted Joe on the shoulder on the way by.

"No need, I'm fine." The reply was still winded.

"You are not fine, Joe." Frank tugged at the blood soaked t shirt stuck to his brother's torso. "You can't catch your breath, you're sweating, that nutcase shot you… I think it's shock... there's blood everywhere, Joe."

"Hey, Frank, stop." Joe caught Frank's hands in one of his. "It's not mine. None of this blood is mine. The only person Mr. Nutcase shot was himself on the way down the steps. Somebody got him in the back when the first rounds went off and he landed on top of me. I'm fine."

"But…" Frank looked more closely at his sibling. Joe was good at a lot of things, but lying wasn't one of them. Not if you looked straight in his eyes. "You're panting."

A soft snort escaped the younger of the pair. "You would be too. That idiot was heavy – twice – and somebody knocked me down the stairs."

Frank smiled finally, helping Joe sit the rest of the way up. "Sorry about that."

"I'm not. Oh, and next time you tell me I always want to leave the hospital, ready or not, remember that isn't true anymore. This was one hospital discharge I was happy to take a pass on." Joe flinched a little, wrapping his arm around his ribs. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Joe frowned, plucking at the dried red splatter on Frank's sleeve.

"To quote someone I know, it's not mine." Frank stiffened with the answer, his relief ebbing a fraction as the rest of the afternoon crashed back down.

"If it's not yours, then why the frown?" Joe lurched to his knees, trying to stand.

"Look, I'm pretty sure he's fine, but, ah…"

"Fraaank…."

"It's Dad's blood, Joe. It's a just graze, and I think Mom's ok, but it's Dad's."

#####

#####

"First unit goes to the left of the ridge, second unit into the hollow behind the cabin, third group stays with me. Medical is monitoring all radio communication. No one stays on the mountain more than four hours without returning to base. Understood?"

A round of nods and muttered affirmations followed.

"Ok then. Fifteen minutes until daybreak. Everybody get ready to move out."

The speaker turned to a petite brunette woman behind him. She looked exhausted, ebony hair twirled into a messy bun and purple smudges beneath large dark eyes. The hem of flannel pajama pants peaked from below the edge of hastily pulled on jeans and a heavy wool sweater wrapped her frame, but he could still tell how truly tiny she was. Somehow she didn't seem fragile in spite of her diminutive stature. A small blonde girl was curled in her lap, asleep, but the streaked face suggested prolonged tears.

"We'll find your family, ma'am. I promise you that."

#####

#####

"Dad!" Frank and Joe both skidded to a halt at the door to their mother's room, an unnerving swarm of nurses and officers milling about.

A medic dropped a needle driver to the tray beside the reclined chair the shirtless senior detective currently occupied. "Go ahead and sit up, I'm done."

"You ok?" Joe was eyeing the row of sutures with a raised eyebrow.

"Fine. A scratch." Fenton gazed between the pair, settling on Joe as the more disheveled of the two. "And I could ask you the same."

"We're alright." Joe's eyes flicked toward his mother, but she was sleeping.

Fenton sighed. "They gave her something. Dragging her to the floor like that didn't do her much good."

"The fractures?"

"The nurse said everything checked out ok, but the orthopedist will come to confirm that. Assuming one can get in the building, everything's still locked down." Fenton paused, waiting to see if either of his sons would volunteer any information.

"Do you know what happened, Dad?" Frank eased further into the room, stopping by Laura's bed. A fingertip traced the bullet holes in the edge of the mattress.

"In general or about you and Joe? The officers already enlightened me about your little adventure." Fenton paused, drawing a deep breath and hugging his younger child. Eventually he pushed him out to arm's length, still clasping each shoulder. "You're sure you're ok, Joe?"

The answer was uncharacteristically subdued. "Yeah, I'm sure."

"The agents are still taking statements and photographs, but it looks like four shooters were involved, primarily on this floor and around the ICU."

"Around the plane crash survivors then." Frank's observation was unwelcome, but accurate. "Any fatalities?"

Fenton nodded grimly. "All of the gunmen, a nurse, a police officer, and three patients."

Joe interrupted. "All of the gunmen? But mine was talking…"

One of the agents in the room spoke up. "The second shot in the stairwell hit an artery. He died less than five minutes after we pried him off you, Joe."

Joe shuddered. That shot could have hit him just as easily. "Anybody know why they did this?"

"No."

The officers left, snapping a few final pictures of the slugs in the wall, but the Hardys had no doubt that the crime scene unit would be close behind to do a more thorough job.

"How come we haven't been evicted?"

"Sorry, Frank, what?" Fenton looked up, half startled.

"I said why haven't we been evicted? This is a crime scene."

"Probably don't have enough rooms." Joe shrugged, the adrenaline of the last hours gone. He was well aware he was angry with his father before all this started, but it didn't seem important anymore.

"You're half right." Fenton waved his hand toward the other side of the ward. "They don't have enough prepared rooms. Once the other side of the locked ward is cleaned up, we're moving over there."

"This side being locked didn't do much good." Joe shifted uncomfortably, grasping his mother's hand.

"She'll be fine, son. I doubt the marines could get in here right now."

"Not the marines I'm worried about."

#####

#####

"Fenton!" Blue snapped open, frantically scanning the room. "Fen?!"

"Shh. It's ok. We're ok, Laura. Shh." Fenton smoothed his fingers over his wife's cheek. "Everything's fine."

Laura's gasps gradually subsided to a more normal respiratory rate, the last of the nightmare dissipating. "They were shooting at everything."

"That was yesterday, honey, remember? We're fine."

"The boys?"

"They're back at the hotel. Our sons are fine, Laura." Fenton waited on her to refocus. It wasn't the first nightmare of the day.

"They're ok?"

"Yes."

"Joe?"

"He's fine." She was looking at him now, expression no longer lost. Another few minutes at most and she'd be truly awake.

"Sorry."

Fenton shook his head. "For what? You're entitled to a bad dream or two."

Laura almost smiled. "Yeah, but this isn't the first time we've had this conversation today, is it? I remember now. Third?"

"Fourth, but who's counting." Fenton shared the same wry smile. "Really, honey, it's ok."

"Are the boys coming back to visit tonight?"

The smile deflated just a little. "No, they can't. The police aren't letting anyone except spouses in."

"Oh."

"I did talk to your doctor, though. He didn't agree to you travelling, but if we stay in Chicago, you may be able to go to the hotel day after tomorrow – IF you stay in bed."

"I'd like that. Maybe even celebrate Thanksgiving finally." Laura deftly avoided agreeing to stay in bed. "I'd like something to take my mind off all this."

"Even if Thanksgiving isn't your favorite holiday anymore?"

Laura laughed softly. "Who says it's not? Thanksgiving will always be my favorite holiday and a plane crash isn't stealing that. It brought me a family, it brought me you, I found out I was pregnant with Joe over Thanksgiving, heck, it very nearly brought me Frank."

"You can't count Frank. He was supposed to be a Halloween baby, he just showed up two weeks late – which isn't Thanksgiving, although it probably felt like it."

"Only time the child has ever been late, I think. Now if it had been Joseph…"

Fenton chuckled. "That would have made more sense. Frank told me once he didn't want to be teased about being born on Halloween, so he had to be late."

"Why would he think that?" Laura sounded mildly perplexed.

"I think it had something to do with his cousin Tonya getting called little witch all the time with that birthday." Fenton shook his head. Unfortunately that part was true. His niece had gotten no end of grief about her bewitched birthdate.

"Humph. He could have showed up on November first and missed that. What's his excuse for the other thirteen days?"

Fenton kissed his wife gently, smiling against her skin. "You'll have to ask him that one yourself, love. I don't know."

#####

#####

Benjamin jerked; suddenly aware he'd fallen asleep. He listened closely in the silence, searching for what woke him. What insidious new calamity waited to pounce? Wait… Silence. The storm had stopped. It was the absence of chaos that seemed so out of place after the last twenty four hours.

He worked his hands free from his gloves, slipping them in toward the throat of each child. Neither stirred, but sluggish pulses met his fingers. They had a little time yet. Not much, but a little.

The sky was dismal purple-grey, providing no hint as to time, and he considered getting up. In the end he simply sat. The kids couldn't hike out of here; he knew that; he doubted he could without some help. It was up to fate now. He let out a bitter laugh. Fate hadn't befriended Joe or Laura thus far in their brief lives. Relying on her today was folly.

He shook his head, hard, clearing the morbid thoughts. Maybe the children couldn't hike, but there had to be something he could do. Beth and Amy were waiting. He was debating man versus fire, round two, when he heard a strange yelping noise. Dogs.

He rapidly dug through the pack, yanking the flares out and launching one. His shouts were hoarse and raw, desperate. "Here! We're here! HERE!"

A few minutes later the noise was closer and he tossed his final flare. "HERE!"

"We're coming!" A loud call sounded only a few yards away.

Benjamin stumbled out from under the children and away from the tree ring, amazed at the depths of the surrounding drifts. He rasped out another shout. "Over here!"

"I see you. Benjamin McCullough?"

"Yes." The man reached Ben as he answered.

"Beth says you're late for breakfast." The ranger clapped the other man on the back, a simple transfer of reassurance. "We've been searching for you since dawn."

Ben stared at the pale sky again, silently asking a question.

"It just looks early because of the cloud cover. You're working on late for lunch, too."

"The kids…" Benjamin was physically tugging the other man toward to lean-to now, but the ranger didn't seem to mind.

"Your wife told us you had a boy and a girl with you. The medics are coming right behind me."

"They're so cold. I tried to build a shelter, but they're still so cold. I'm not sure if…" Benjamin stopped abruptly, unable to finish the thought. Joe and Laura had to be ok.

Medics arrived via snowmobile and pulled a reluctant Ben over to one of the vehicles, beginning a quick field assessment while the rangers dug out his snow wall.

"Looks to me like you did build a shelter, McCullough, and a pretty decent one at that."

"I need to get to the kids."

"I understand that, I do, but you need to let the medics get a look at them and finish looking at you. Five minutes, that's all we're asking. Ok?" The ranger waited for a nod, then scurried off to the snowmobile holding the small girl.

The medic with Benjamin resumed his questions.

"What day of the week is it?"

"Sunday."

"What month is it?"

"November."

"What season is it?"

"Winter."

"Technically it's fall."

"We're standing on a seven foot snow drift. You really want to argue that one?"

"Sir, these are just routine questions to make certain you aren't confused. Please bear with me."

"Fine."

"What holiday did we just celebrate?"

"Thanksgiving."

"What's your full name?"

"Benjamin Fitzgerald McCullough."

"Who is the President?"

"Oh for Pete's sake…"

"Is that your answer? Who is the President?"

"Georges Pompidou."

"What?"

"You didn't specify the US. Georges Pompidou is the current President of France. Has been since June."

"You're supposed to say Nixon."

A melodramatic sigh followed that one. "Fine. Richard Nixon has been President of the United States since January twentieth. Happy?"

The ranger returned, clearing his throat. "I hate to interrupt, but we're ready to head back."

Ben spun around as fast as his frozen limbs would allow, searching. Both Joe and Laura were strapped into stretchers for the trip off the mountain.

"Sir, relax." A second ranger squeezed Benjamin's shoulder tight. "Your son and your daughter, they're going to be fine."

"But… they're not my son and daughter, I mean I…" Ben stopped and smiled. "My kids are really ok?"

"Yeah, they will be. Your son's already trying to talk."

"My… son… ….My… Son…" He rolled the words around on his popsicled tongue. Yeah, they fit. Better than anything in a very, very long time.

#####

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to be continued...


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's note:** This one is winding way down, this chapter and two more, all to post tonight. I am so grateful for the reviews, and yes, Paulina, the red sneakers must be to find Joe in a crowd! They're actually a joke with my son, but I like your idea better. Cherylann, thank you for the kind descriptions of my wording, sometimes I think I get a bit whimsical with too much description, and yes, I always love to blend in some humor when I go action/angst crazy. ErinJordan thanks again for enjoying this tale. Writing is definitely more fun with a little feedback.

 **CHAPTER 14**

"Ok, give." Frank flung the newspaper in his hand down on the coffee table, peering at his sibling.

"Hmm?" Joe barely raised his head, continuing to mutter and pick through a myriad of scattered files.

"Obviously something is bothering you. What is it?"

"Nothing's bothering me, Frank." Joe held a photo up to the light, snorted, and discarded it.

"I almost believed that the first time I asked."

"Then why ask again?" Joe stretched across the hotel room sofa, snagging a manila folder off the opposite end table and sending a half dozen pencils rolling. A low gasp accompanied the movement.

"The fact that you can't move without making that sound for one." Frank raised an eyebrow and waited.

Joe shrugged, eyes firmly directed at a page of cramped script. "Maybe I'm a little sore. It isn't a big deal."

"You're sore every Saturday after football." Frank waved his hand vaguely at the mess adorning the low table, couch, and floor. "You don't take it out on every piece of paper in a five mile radius."

"And they say you're the smart one. This isn't even five feet, bro." A sing-song cadence accompanied the reply. "See feet are more or less the size of your feet and miles are really, reaaaaalllly long like, well, your feet… wait, bad example…."

"Joe…"

"I'm not taking anything out on the poor, innocent, compressed tree pulp." Joe put the paper he was holding down, but couldn't quite relinquish the edge.

"Could have fooled me." Frank sighed, fingers making a quick trip through his hair.

"No, not really." The words were softly exhaled rather than spoken.

Frank wasn't certain if he was supposed to have heard them or not. It depended on whether Joe was seeking an opening to finally talk to him or still preferred denial 101. Too bad Bayport High didn't offer that one; he'd have the top grade ever recorded. "Not really what?"

"You said could have fooled me. Well, apparently not." Joe shoved the typed pages a few inches away, hands wiping over rapidly bouncing knees. "You're a nuisance, you know that? I haven't successfully hidden anything from you since third grade."

"Guilty." Frank grinned a little, acknowledging the attempt at humor even though Joe was clearly anxious. "Besides, did you want to?"

"No, I guess not." Joe forced a smile, a wan effort that highlighted his bruised jaw and fatigued countenance rather than alleviating them. He swiped an arm around, indicating half the room. "This doesn't make sense."

Frank looked between the piles of papers and photos, recognizing the files from the other morning as well as several newer additions. The reports from the hospital shooting topped off one particularly precarious stack.

"Uh, care to be more specific?"

Joe snorted and stood, knocking a smattering of crumpled sheets to the floor. "All of it. Any of it. The angles. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong."

"You don't think you are or you wouldn't be this agitated."

Joe had begun to pace in the gap between the couch and the table. A gap that unfortunately wasn't as wide as the teen's shoes, leading to a loud bang and soft curse. He flopped back to the cushions, rubbing his knee.

"I'm not agitated, just clumsy." Joe plucked the original Network file they'd found on their father from the mound and stared at it long enough for an uncomfortable silence to descend. "I was wrong to be angry."

"I think Dad understood, Joe." Frank eased the folder from his brother's cramped hand. "Whether his undercover work had anything to do with what happened to Iola or not, it's still too raw. He left us out of something that changed our lives, forever."

"He never thought Iola would die."

"No, he didn't." Frank held his breath, listening to the thumping in his ears. The silence was back, settling in like an unwanted relative planning on a long stay. "You're upset, but not with Dad. Not anymore anyway."

"No." A low sigh followed. "I don't have the right. Neither of us do."

"What do you mean?"

"I was mad at Dad for being involved with an organization so dangerous that striking out at his family, or trying to, should have been predictable. He should have known something would happen sooner or later."

"Joe, Dad must have…"

"…Felt like he had to, I know. Let me finish. We've been working with the Network for months now, without Dad's knowledge for the most part, because we felt like we had to." Joe studied the edge of his thumb, picking at a non-existent hangnail. "How long before the tables turn and someone's after Mom or Dad because of something you or I did? What if that's happened already?"

Frank dropped his head into his hands, elbows on his sprawled knees in the too small chair. He and Joe had both agonized over every case they'd taken for the Network, both because of the secrecy involved and also their reluctance to work with the organization's rather flexible moral code. Thus far he felt they'd maintained their integrity and only acquiesced to assignments that were truly crucial… or at least ones that Arthur Gray managed to present as crucial. The man was hopelessly manipulative, and even when you were well aware of that it was difficult to sort through the high pressure tactics. What had started as the pursuit of Iola's murderer had relentlessly snowballed. "Do you think we're wrong? Working with them, I mean?"

Joe started pacing again, the thumped knee forgotten. "I didn't, and that would mean Dad wasn't wrong either. I shouldn't have been angry with him."

Frank stared at his brother's expression. It wasn't accepting, or even resigned. The younger Hardy looked trapped, if anything. "You said I didn't, not I don't. What changed?"

"This. Look."

#####

#####

A dark clad man unscrewed the sight from the final piece of his rifle, carefully replacing it in the confines of a deeply padded briefcase. He'd fired a single shot yesterday from the shadows outside the hospital; the sound conveniently lost amongst the inner gunfire and cacophony. When you dropped your target the first time, it only took the one.

The man he'd killed landed in a less desolate corner of the grounds, easily discovered by the authorities that had swarmed the hospital campus like enraged bees. The mass of drones had thinned somewhat in the last thirty six hours, allowing him to retrieve the stashed weapon. The second shot today eliminated another loose end. Easy enough.

The ballistics wouldn't match any of the other shooters, of course, but that would end up as a curious footnote on some bureaucratic scrap of paper, a hopelessly lost tidbit buried in an endless cycle of reports. It wouldn't lead back to him. It never did.

He shucked out of a black hooded shirt and pants, revealing a bright pink tank shirt and blue plaid shorts. He unlaced military style black boots, tucking them into an oversized back pack. Removing flip flops, a skateboard, and an iPod from the bag created enough space to stow the briefcase, night toned clothes, and dark glasses as well. In less than a minute, he'd gone from sniper to kid. He raked his fingers through plastered down hair, spiking the neon blue tinted tips, before glancing at his watch and melting into the crowd on the street. He had an hour before he needed to trade the punk kid persona in on straight laced soldier. Plenty of time.

The cellphone in his pocket buzzed. Figured. His boss was early.

"Hello."

"You clear?"

"Yeah. Easy."

"Yeah? Having your own personal casual Friday or are you where there are ears?"

"Yep. Could say that… and it isn't Friday."

"Fine. Don't count on 'yeah' becoming base protocol."

"Not a problem, dude."

"Glad to hear it. I'm not as glad about being called dude."

"Chief Dude?"

"Better, I suppose. You couldn't find a less drastic answer to our dirty agent problem?"

"Not one that involved your nephews staying on this side of the cemetery grass"

"Hmph. We'll talk about it when you get here. Hurry it up."

"Keep your pants on."

"My pants aren't your concern, lieutenant. McCullough out."

#####

#####

A low rumble distracted Frank from the file in his hand, the noise sounding off for the third time before he conceded the point. He'd been sifting through papers for hours and he was starved. He decided to ignore it, re-reading Joe's notes instead.

"Get a muzzle for your innards or call for a pizza."

Frank looked up, mildly embarrassed. "Sorry. We've been at this forever."

Joe tossed him the phone. "No anchovies."

"You know we've got a kitchen. Or sort of anyway." Frank surveyed the hotel kitchenette, consisting of a stamp sized microwave, small refrigerator-freezer combo under the counter, and an ancient two burner stove that might have shipped over on the Mayflower. It was amazing the thing didn't come with a coal basket and bellows.

"Even if that qualified as a kitchen, we'd need a cook. Unless you're volunteering, start dialing."

"Fine." Frank spoke briefly to room service, then stood, rolling his shoulders. "Pizza will be here in half an hour. Let's walk through this again."

Joe shrugged. "Ok, but it isn't going to change. Here's the original flight list."

Frank took the paper, tapping the three highlighted names with his pencil. "We've got Carmen Feland, niece of a Network agent, James Shelton, who shares the same name as an agent, but actually appears to be a tax accountant from Southport, and Colin Creiter, also a Network agent, all on a flight from Chicago to Bayport. Shelton and Creiter both died in the initial crash."

Joe picked up the thought. "The Network shows up as part of the crash investigation, presuming that if the plane was brought down and their people were on board, then their operatives were the target. Logical enough. Also logical that if the Network is directly being targeted, Assassins are the most likely perpetrators."

"Agreed. The Assassins needed a way to identify that combination of people to strike that particular plane, though. Computer tinkering maybe. It wouldn't be that hard to monitor the lists of public flights for matches of known agents and their aliases, but you run the risk that they won't fly for years, or won't fly using those names, or flat out getting the wrong guy, like poor Mr. Shelton. To have a reasonable chance of success, you'd need to match at least two names, preferably more. After you hacked into the airline company's ticket sales and avoided the TSA, of course."

"How hard is that?"

"The trick would be keeping your tampering undetected, but not that hard. I could probably do it. Phil definitely could." Frank frowned, considering the logistics of the idea.

"Possible but cumbersome, then. The other option is that someone else in the Network gave this specific travel itinerary to the Assassins." Joe pulled the picture of his father and Al-Rousasa from the stack. "And compliments of Dad's investigation we know there are agents willing to do exactly that."

Frank perched on the edge of the bed, nodding. "I think that's more likely. The Network agents sent to investigate the crash pretty much prove that. Otherwise you have to believe that the three agents sent to look into this plane just happen to be the three investigating Dad for selling secrets and they just happened to bring all the paperwork on that case with them..."

Joe smiled a little. "And the Easter Bunny's making our pizza this evening, too."

Frank started to answer when a knock interrupted. "Food's here. Hope he didn't put jelly beans on it."

"Very funny." Joe retrieved the pizza, munching on a candy free slice as he continued to restack the innumerable papers. "So the Network agents aren't here to investigate the crash per se, they're completing their investigation into their own operatives. Dad said there had to be at least one more rogue."

"That all fits, Joe." Frank selected a piece heavier on the peppers and lighter on pepperoni. "Case closed."

"Creiter." Half a wedge disappeared into Joe's mouth, truncating the thought.

#####

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to be continued...


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

"Creiter."

Frank cringed, appetite suddenly gone. This was their fifth mental circuit through the evidence in the case, and he'd been hoping not to explore this facet again. Colin Creiter was a young Network operative, not a full time Agent, who had been instrumental in closing two cases recently that shook the Assassins to the core. If the terrorist organization did have foreknowledge he was on that plane, it likely explained the attack. The problem was that Creiter was a carefully constructed cover and the young man on the plane last week wasn't the only one to use that name and set of credentials. As a matter of fact, he was only doing so because the original owner of the alias had refused a solo case fifteen days ago. A case that was almost certain to have had collateral civilian deaths the Network had labeled acceptable. Creiter number one didn't agree. His brother didn't either.

"You couldn't have known, Joe." Frank watched his sibling carefully. On the surface, he was a high school junior eating pizza and surrounded by what looked like a mountain of homework. Underneath, the chewing was mechanical; he'd been in a constant state of twitchy motion ever since they'd, ah, creatively acquired the full passenger list last night, and the normally brilliantly blue eyes were shadowed nearly grey. "You had every reason to turn down that assignment."

"They were after me, Frank. Creiter's never been anything but a ghost, it was me." Joe rose, staring blankly out at the sleet. "All those people in a fireball… Mom… just like Iola."

Frank closed his eyes, the image of both explosions; one from memory, one from the news; splashed across his mind in horrid Technicolor. "This isn't your fault."

"No matter what name I was using, they were still after me."

"They were after an alias named Creiter that's been used by four or five people and racked up more success than one individual ever could, and they were after Shelton. It's not the same." Frank left the small sleeping area, crossing in front of the double beds and stopping a foot shy of his brother. "It wouldn't matter anyway. If you engraved Joe's Plane on the side of the fuselage and flew it over Assassin headquarters, it still wouldn't make it your fault. The only one responsible is whoever detonated that bomb."

Joe nodded, but he didn't turn around to look at Frank. He walked onto the balcony instead, freezing wind howling in behind him. "I know that in my head. Believing it is a whole other matter."

Frank dropped to the couch, deciding it was the better part of valor to leave Joe alone. He gathered the copied files and photos together, quickly shoving the papers into folders. They had all the answers they needed as far as he was concerned. A double agent for the Network sold out some information to the Assassins about the travel plans of agents they wanted to target, and the Assassins were evil enough to bring down an entire plane to achieve that. If there was more to it, and every instinct the young sleuth possessed screamed that there was, he didn't want to pursue it. Not with the risk of feeding the guilt his brother obviously already felt. Damn Al-Rousasa anyway. Before that Joe would have needed a copy of Rand-McNally and a compass to even locate guilt. Now it lurked beneath a veneer, ready to lurch out and shatter the carefully reconstructed shell of happy-go-lucky younger Hardy attitude.

Putting the folders away, he boxed up the pizza and glanced at his watch. Joe had been absolving his supposed sins in the rain long enough.

"Joe?" Frank stepped onto the balcony, instantly wrapping his arms around his lanky torso. The wind was bitter. "Come inside."

"Soon." Joe had both forearms propped on the railing, leaning out into the storm. Icy rivulets plastered his blonde waves to his head and his shirt stuck to his back, too soaked to absorb the water sheeting down his frame.

"Ok." Frank joined him at the rail, trying to hide a shiver.

"You're going to get drenched."

Frank nodded. "Probably."

Joe turned and looked at him, then gazed back at the grey shrouded city. "You don't have to stay out here and drown. Go back in."

"When you do." Frank kept his voice as agreeably casual as he could, waiting out the long silence that ensued.

Joe finally spoke. "Are you really going to stand out here and freeze to death because you think I should go inside?"

"Pretty much."

"You don't have to worry about me that much, Frank. I'm ok." Joe stood up, unsuccessfully plucking at the broadcloth clinging at his waist. "Maybe I could be a little drier, though."

"Couldn't be any wetter, certainly." Frank's hand landed on Joe's shoulder, steering him back into the suite. "Come on."

"You didn't have to come out here."

Joe in the months after Iola's death shrieked through Frank's mind in an instant. "Yeah, I did."

Half an hour later, Frank emerged from the shower toweling much warmer droplets of water from his hair. He found Joe back on the small sofa, photographs once again in his hand.

"Joe… No matter who was targeting who… none of this is your fault and it's over. Making yourself miserable won't bring a single one of those people back. Please… let it go. Don't do this to yourself." An unspoken again hung in the air.

Joe looked somewhat surprised. "What? Oh, no, I'm not. It's just that we were busy thinking about Creiter and Shelton and we sort of forgot about Carmen. She's not an agent, why target her?"

"Maybe she wasn't a target; she was just on the plane."

Joe shook his head. "A coincidence? The agents investigating here had a file on her. I don't think so."

Frank sighed, unable to avoid reopening the topic. "Me either. The other two died in the crash. There was no need to start a shoot out in the hospital unless Carmen was a target, too. Besides, the hospital photos bear that out. Most of the patients and staff that were injured or killed have somewhat random wounds. She has a single gunshot entrance wound exactly in the center of her forehead. No way that's collateral damage."

"She's an agent's niece, but that doesn't explain it. If the gunmen wanted to target family members of operatives, we'd both be in the morgue, but we walked away." Joe selected a specific photo and handed it to his brother, glossing over that his 'walk away' from the hospital involved being tossed down the stairs at gunpoint.

The picture was a security camera still, captured outside of Carmen's hospital room right after the shooting ended, the overturned sofa that had sheltered Joe and his would be kidnapper visible in the foreground. Joe had added yellow grease pencil lines. "Look at the angles."

Frank studied the photo, his eyes widening as he traced one of the vectors. "Joe… You said the Assassin that was with you under that couch was shot in the back. From Carmen's bed to there…"

"I know. She shot him." Joe pointed to another wax line. "It took me this long to realize exactly what I heard. Two gunmen went directly into her room. She shot one of them before the other shot her. The chaos of gunfire all over the building erupted after that."

"Security has been pretty tight all week. How did she have a gun?" Frank opted to skip over the more problematic question of why for the moment.

"One of the Network agents could have smuggled a gun to her."

"Of course, but they wouldn't do that." Frank scowled. "Unless they were the rogue agent Dad never found. Crud."

Joe nodded rapidly, realizing his sibling had reached the same conclusion he did. "I started poking around in the computer, which tipped the double agent off, or else he always intended to tidy up loose ends."

Frank interrupted, both of them talking progressively faster. "The dirty agent Dad was still searching for last summer was Carmen's uncle. That's why he had a file on Dad that contained information the other two investigators didn't have. He didn't suspect Dad was working for the Assassins, he knew better. He supplied Carmen with a gun in the hospital, which means she had to be involved in working for the Assassins, too."

"So she has the gun to protect herself if the legitimate agents from the FBI or Homeland Security catch on to her, but when her uncle realizes the whole situation may hit the fan, she becomes expendable…"

"Along with the other Network agents involved who might have discovered they were partnering with a terrorist traitor…"

"Who starts off the gunfight at the OK Corral at the hospital…"

"And gets rid of the real Network Agents and Carmen as a potential security leak…"

"While looking like a second attack on the passengers rather than a cleanup operation…"

"Which also means that Carmen was never a victim of the plane crash…"

"She was the bomber."

The two of them came to that last sentence together, staring at each other. It was the only explanation, but the revelation was still shocking out loud. All of those people… killed by a fifteen year old girl.

#####

#####

Benjamin blinked rapidly, trying to focus on the ceiling above him. Greyish white tiles. No paper stars and glittery snowflakes. No real ones either. "Wh-where?"

He licked his cracked lips and tried again, the answer to his own question becoming evident as he woke up a little. "Oh. The ER."

"Yeah." Beth leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, before sitting back and smiling. "You've been asleep since I got here."

Ben pushed himself up with one arm, frowning at the IV in his hand. "That's because I was up all night. I'm fine."

"Actually, the doctor agrees with you. Once this bag of IV fluids is done, you're free to go."

"How are the kids?" Ben searched his wife's deep brown eyes, reassured by the calm there.

"Joe and Laura are sharing a room upstairs, but they're both basically ok. Laura has one toe the doctor is a little concerned about, but he said it was a miracle that was the only issue. She may be here a day or two; Joe should be discharged tomorrow. Right now they're both asleep."

"Thank God." Benjamin took a few sips of water, handing the cup back to his wife. "Out in the storm last night, I… I was scared, Beth. I was so afraid I couldn't keep them warm enough, or that I'd done the wrong thing staying put. I thought they were going to die under those trees."

Beth kissed him again, squeezing his shoulder tight. "I was scared, too, but they didn't. And you didn't. I love you, Ben McCullough, but no more midnight camping excursions for you."

"I think that's one rule I can live with." He pulled his wife close, forehead resting against the raven silk of her hair. "This is all going to be rather difficult to explain to the adoption coordinator, isn't it?"

"I'm sure you'll think of something." Beth pulled away, looking at her lap. "This was supposed to be a fun weekend for the kids."

"Beth, honey, this wasn't something anyone could have foreseen. I shouldn't have startled Joe after the mantle fell, but even so there was no way to guess it would lead to all this. Things are supposed to go from step A to B to C. Getting a cup of juice to ending up lost in a blizzard is more of a step A to Q sort of arrangement."

"I know." Beth turned back toward him, lacing her fingers in his. "I can't help but think that if any children ever deserved a few happy days, though. Ben, I… I mean we… I, um, need to talk to you."

Ben stiffened, instantly aware of the apprehension in her voice. "Joe and Laura _are_ really ok, right?"

"Yes, really. Our adoption application, though… I mean, two of the three of them ended up in the hospital. I thought I wanted a baby before this, but having the kids with us just the four days made me realize how much I can't live not being a mother. If this disqualifies us I don't what I'll do."

"It won't disqualify us. It isn't the best situation, I admit, but we're going to make this work." Benjamin glanced at Amy, curled up in the hospital chair, blonde waves tumbling over the vinyl edge and nearly grazing the floor, a miniature angel sleeping in their midst. "We're not missing out on that."

"Joe needs someone he can depend on in his life, someone who will finally allow him to be a child and not a parent to his sisters. Laura and Amy, well there is so much mischief and fun lurking right under the surface with those two. I want to see them all giggle and play and not wonder who's going to hit them next or do Lord knows what else. How awful is it that Joe thinks a great day with an adult is when they ignore you the whole time because at least that's safe? I can't imagine what their life has been, but they deserve so much more."

Ben squeezed her hand tighter. He had to be certain they were thinking the same thing. "Beth? They're supposed to go back to the children's home, remember? You're talking like we're keeping them."

Beth traced her free fingers along the edge of his jaw, blinking away a few welling tears. "Aren't we?"

Benjamin enfolded his wife in his arms, holding her tight. "Yes. Yes we are."

#####

#####

"Joe?"

"Hrmghfff gmmm nwhhjjjk."

"Joe. Wake up." Frank prodded at his sibling's shoulder.

"Immm wakkkffff."

"Great. Today's the day he learns to commune with Martians in their native tongue. Wake Up."

"Iyy seddd Immm awakkffff."

"What?"

Bleary blue eyes peeled open, glaring. "Geeze. I said I'm awake."

"Yeah, right. In Swahili maybe. Oh no, wait, that's a real language with actual grammar. Unlike Joe-speak. Get up, I need to pack." Frank flopped a suitcase onto the bed, not bothering to hide a smirk when it bounced into Joe's head.

"Pack?" Joe sat up, rumpled white sheets sliding down a muscular but bruised chest to twist around his waist. Blonde hair stuck up in disarray, crowning a scrunched expression as the younger Hardy scrubbed at his face with his hands. He looked rather like a very confused, very over grown cherub. Well, if cherubs hit the gym, anyway. "Ok, maybe I'm not awake. You lost me. Aren't we staying in Chicago another week?"

Frank spoke slowly, enunciating each word in his best kindergarten teacher imitation. "Yes, Joe, we are, but Mom and Dad are coming from the hospital today, remember? Mom's going to need her own bed, and as much fun as it would be for you, Dad, and I to all share the other double, I think we should move upstairs to the two bedroom suite Dad rented. Unless you really wanted to invite Mom in here to see your shirts drying on the lampshades, the boxers over the shower rod, and the blue jeans wadded on the floor?"

Joe flushed a little. "Um, no. I thought they were coming on Thursday?"

"Which is today."

"Oh. Right. Can we try this again after a cup of coffee?" Joe started to stand, stumbling as the blanket caught his ankle and ending up in an undignified clump on the floor.

Frank clamped his teeth on his lower lip, desperate not to snicker. "You better have the whole pot."

"The way you brew it, probably." Joe wrapped the blanket around him, leaving a grimacing Frank to wonder just what he was, or wasn't, wearing under there. "You do know black coffee is supposed to be at least sort of black, right? It isn't supposed to be amber."

"It isn't supposed to peel the paint off the house, either. Turkish sailors wouldn't drink the stuff you make." The mere thought of Joe's sludge-as-coffee preference made Frank choke.

"Good. Didn't want to invite any sailors for breakfast anyway. Beach bunnies… now there's a nautical guest I could warm up to… or mermaids, maybe… sirens… hmm…."

"I thought you had your eye on that new girl at home, Joe."

Thoughts of the lanky blonde he'd spotted at school woke the younger Hardy up enough to smile. "You're right, Frank, she'd make a great beach bunny. Good idea."

"You are incorrigible."

"I try."

Frank shook his head, grinning. Maybe Joe was going to be fine.

"Hey, Frank?" Joe's voice rang out from behind the closed bathroom door, competing with the running shower. "I was thinking we could go over those photos one more time…"

Or maybe not. "There's nothing else to find, Joe, this is one dead horse that's thoroughly beat. Besides you've got to… uh… go out and pick up breakfast."

"What? No, I went last time. You're going." Joe's words were garbled, wet. "Besides, there's a few donuts left and you can eat that granola twigs crap you like."

Frank sighed wistfully at the plate he'd just prepared, shoving a single bite of the honey oat granola and kiwi into his mouth before sliding it and Joe's beloved donuts into the trash. "Nope, all gone. You'll have to go out."

"Still don't see why I have to be the one to go."

"Because if you try to pack up our stuff before check out we'll have to buy four more suitcases and a donkey cart to haul them with… and the donkey definitely sleeps with you."

An exaggerated groan emanated from the bathroom. "Once. Just once a guy can't get his clothes to fit back into his luggage at summer camp and it haunts him forever. I _can_ pack, brother o' mine."

"The way I remember it, you couldn't get your things back into your suitcase _and_ two grocery sacks, but hey, you remember it any way you want, little brother. Meanwhile, I'll pack, and you'll get breakfast."

"Whatever."

#####

#####

to be continued...


	16. Chapter 16

Author's Note - so this is it! Thanks again to everyone!

 **CHAPTER 16**

"Now what?" Joe pressed his forehead against the ceiling to floor, wall to wall glass, watching a lazy, almost reluctant snowfall. It certainly beat yesterday's combination of sleet, hail, and freezing rain. At least this was pretty, even if looking out the huge thirtieth story window inspired a bit of vertigo. The sky was a pewter-grey, lit with hints of a mostly obscured morning sun.

"It'll be late afternoon before Mom and Dad are here. We could go for a run?" Frank tried to sound more enthusiastic than he felt. The weather was better, but it was still blang cold out there. The new suite was immaculate, all deep brown granite and cream-gold plaster nestled around burgundy brocade upholstery and slubbed silk bedding. A touch fussy, perhaps, but overall an old world elegance pervaded the space. It made him want to build a fire in the stone hearth and peruse a book, not lace up sneakers.

"Brrr, I'll pass. You might get me on the treadmill downstairs, emphasis on the might. That's it." Joe's eyes wandered over to the boxed casefile. "If we've got some time, we could…"

"No."

"But Frank…"

"No. Staring at all of those files isn't going to do either of us any good. We know what happened, where it happened, who did it, and why. What else could there possibly be to gain from another look?"

Joe shook his head, mildly irritated. "You left out how."

"What?"

"Who, what, where, when, why, and how. You left out how."

Frank rolled his eyes. "I think we both know how a bomb makes a plane blow up."

"Yeah, we do… and we have since we were about ten. Doesn't that strike you as the least bit odd?" Joe's voice had dropped, almost to the point of a whisper.

"Not anymore." Frank stared at his brother, hard. Somehow that question and answer weren't about this trip to Chicago any longer. Distraction, that was the key. "We don't have time to search through that again, anyway."

"We don't?"

"Nope." Frank extracted a crinkled slip of paper from Joe's coat pocket, hoping the plan he'd concocted in the last two seconds wasn't going to end up as a replay of the great Chicago fire. "Mom loves Thanksgiving and she missed it. We need to fix that."

Joe eyed the worn scrap with suspicion. "Is that the grocery list from our Thanksgiving shopping trip?"

"Absolutely. Everything needed for a traditional Hardy Thanksgiving feast."

"Not everything, unless the corner grocer sells chefs now, too." Joe shook his head, eyes wide. "You're not suggesting we cook this stuff."

"I think it would be rather preferable to eating it raw, so yes." Frank smiled, dismissing his own misgivings. A busy Joe wasn't a brooding Joe. His mother would forgive him for any singed stuffing that occurred in the process. "Surely Mr. Fearless isn't afraid of a little flour?"

"Flour isn't on the list." Joe tried to leave it there, truly he did. "…And I'm not fearless."

Frank squeezed his brother's shoulder, prodding him toward the door. "Nobody is, Joe. Not any of us." He pulled in a deep audible breath. "Now, the dark cherries… Dad said you couldn't find them in Bayport, but…"

#####

#####

"Mr. McCullough? Sir?" Joe stood on the granite tiles of the porch in precisely the same spot as five days ago, staring at a deep burgundy door. Amy leaned against him, half asleep, while Laura snoozed within Beth's arms, oblivious.

Benjamin unlocked the door before turning back to the child beside him. "What is it, Joe?"

The blonde head bowed, tousled curls catching the light from the pair of pewter gas lamps flanking the entrance. "I… I would rather not go in… Sir."

Ben froze, eager to get in out of the chilled wind, but refusing to make another misstep. Gesturing at Beth to return the girls to the warmth of the heated car rather than the house, he strode across the stones to a porch swing. Sweeping out snow with his hand, he sat, hoping Joe would do the same.

Several minutes passed before he did, Joe carefully checking on his sisters and peering in the partitioned glass windows of the house first.

"Why not?" Benjamin smiled faintly. "The last night we spent outside got a little rough."

Joe physically flinched at that. "Oh, no sir. I don't want to stay out here. I want to go back to the county home. Tonight. Please."

Benjamin made an effort to breathe slowly and say nothing while he sorted this out in his head. "I'll take you there in a few minutes if that's what you really want, Joe, but I want you to talk with me first, ok? You don't have to say yes."

Joe raised an eyebrow at that, but cautiously nodded. "Ok."

"Before," Ben let out a huff of air, rapid words tumbling out, "Before the accident in the cabin, were you having any fun on this trip?"

"Yes sir."

Not precisely exuberant, but apparently that was all the answer he was going to get. The youth beside him was staring at his boots, those incredible azure eyes well hidden.

"How about dinner here before we left? It was ok?"

"Yes sir."

"Ok, then I'm a little confused. Our attorney… You know what an attorney is, right?"

"Yes sir."

Benjamin nodded, ignoring the repetitious formal answer. "Our attorney arranged with the county for you to continue to stay with us. Beth and I want that to be a permanent arrangement. There are a lot of things that have to be done before that's official, but I'm confident after my meeting yesterday that I can make this happen. Would you like that?"

"I… I… uh, no sir."

"No?" Benjamin struggled to keep any hint of disappointment from his words. Heck it wasn't disappointment, more of a sudden crushing rejection, but this conversation couldn't be about him. It had to be about Joe…and right now Joe was scared.

"No sir." Joe consciously forced air in and out, obviously fighting his way back toward composure.

"You deserve a family, Joe, and so do Amy and Laura. I want that family to be Beth and I, but if you can't be happy here, then I'll help you find a home. I told you I'd never hurt you and that includes not making you stay if it isn't what you want. Somewhere you'll belong. You'll fit. There are people out there that will love you and take care of you, forever. I know you haven't had a lot of reasons to believe that, but I'm going to ask you to trust me. I want you here more than anything, but if I can't have that, then I'm going to see you safely adopted if I have to search under every rock and travel every corner of the world. There is someplace for you to be happy, I promise you that, and I will find it."

"I… can't… be… adopted… please…" The words spaced out with a series of gasps, then deteriorated to the first of torrent of wracking sobs. "Please... can't… sir…no…he said… please… no one wants three… please… can't be apart… no… no… can't want me… no… Pop said… papers were… bill of sale… no… no… please…no…"

Ben abandoned any attempt to comprehend the individual words. Somewhere in the midst of his move-every-mountain speech he'd missed the utter panic descending over Joe, but the desolate tears were now unmistakable. This child, this boy that had looked directly at him in acceptance when he'd thought Ben would beat him, who had placed himself in every perceived line of fire to shield his sisters; this same child was pleading, terrified. What could possibly make Joe beg? _No one wants three._

Joe pulled both legs into the swing, body bent double as he knelt there, face buried in his knees. The raspy crying slowly faded away and yet the slim form continued to tremble, hiccupped wheezes punctuating complete capitulation.

Instinct screeched at Benjamin to wrap both arms around Joe and never let go, but instinct would have been wrong. Ever so gently he eased his hand flat against Joe's shoulder, holding his breath when the child tensed.

The scene held for a second, razor balanced somewhere between wounded, tossed-away children and a bereft lonely couple and an idyllic family of five with a picket fence and cranberry stuffing. Either outcome possible, neither more likely in that crackling winter instant.

And suddenly, wordlessly, it was decided. The knotted muscles beneath Ben's palm gathered, then launched, propelling Joe into the man's lap.

Joe twisted his fists in the back of Benjamin's jacket, clinging desperately as the tears resumed, soaking into the older man's shoulder. "I… I want…I'm sorry."

"Shh, I got you, Joey. Shh. It's going to be ok. Shh. We're going to be ok, son. All of us."

The ferocious grip gradually loosened and Benjamin carried the boy upstairs to bed, hesitating just long enough at the threshold to register a tiny nod against his chest. Joe was ready to go in. He was home.

#####

#####

"Will these, um, melt or something, you think?"

Frank craned his neck sideways, peering into the large metal bowl in front of Joe. "These what? I can't half see."

Joe glanced up at that, stifling a snicker at his sibling's tear streaked face. "You and onions. People cry less at one of those Greek tragedy plays you keep going to."

"You know people don't actually cry at those, right?" Frank cocked an eyebrow, swiping at his tears with a jersey clad shoulder while he continued to mince onions.

"I'd certainly cry if you made me go." Joe chuckled. "I'd cry if I even had to spell that Oreo play you went to last time."

Frank sighed. "The Oresteia is three plays and I went because Callie was in it."

"No amount of girlfriend brownie points is worth that."

The sigh transformed into a cryptic smile. "You never saw the costumes. Besides, you don't know what those so called brownie points got me."

Joe glanced at his brother in surprise, a fleeting image of Callie in a clingy tunic flashing through his head. "There may be hope for you yet."

Frank slid the onions into a small sauce pan with the knife blade and returned to Joe's pan, saying nothing. He picked up a teaspoon and scooped tiny fragments of egg shell from the raw eggs within.

"Wouldn't have melted, huh?"

"No." Frank shook his head and consulted the recipe sheets he'd had Callie fax from their house. "I don't think we're ready for the eggs anyway. Apparently this onion, celery and butter goop has to cook before we mix it with the eggs and breadcrumbs."

"It's all going to bake in the stuffing in the end, what's the difference?"

"No idea but we may as well follow the directions since we have them."

Joe rolled his eyes, clearly indicating what he thought of that pronouncement. "Sure, right. Ok, stuffing is started, spinach artichoke thingy is ready to bake, pumpkin pie is done…"

"The pie is done? How'd you pull that off?"

"Um, I kinda skipped the ingredients for that and bought a finished pie from the hotel restaurant."

Frank started to protest, then gazed at the elegant pastry on the end of the granite counter, fine white chocolate curls adorning a perfectly browned crust. "Good idea. So, I'll start in on this cranberry cherry salad whatsit and you get the turkey ready to bake."

"Mom's not going to be here for four hours and this only needs to bake like two, Frank."

"Yeah, and we only have one oven. I think Mom bakes the turkey and then puts all the casserole dishes in when it comes out."

Joe frowned. "The turkey is always hot when we eat."

"She must reheat it or something. We'll figure it out." Frank shoved a baking bag and one of the faxes at his brother before intently studying the back of an unflavored gelatin box.

"Ugh. This is beyond a doubt the grossest thing I have ever done." Joe faked a gagging noise.

"What?" Frank kept stirring the melting cranberry sauce on the stove, not looking up. "You're supposed to be fixing the turkey. What's gross about that?"

"Fix the turkey, he says. Did you read these instructions, Frank? First off, I had to dig around inside the thing where no hand was ever meant to go and there were these plastic baggies jammed in there full of innards and some sort of sludge that popped open and squirted up to my elbow. Then I had to loosen the skin. Not remove, mind you, but loosen. Get your hands in between all that pebbly, slippery skin and raw flesh and wriggle them all around." Joe pulled in a lungful of air, the tirade picking up steam. "Then… then I had to mush up a stick of softened butter with two smashed cloves of garlic and thyme, my hands will stink for a year, and then massage – I swear it uses the word massage on here – that whole load of slime under the skin, 'coating all surfaces.' It's repulsive. Heck, it's perverse. I'm never eating turkey again. I'm never eating anything again. Ever. I mean it! I do! Yeah, laugh all you want… you'll regret it when I starve, you'll see!"

Frank resisted as long as he could, but half way through his brother's impassioned monologue the exhaustion and worry of the past week caught up with him and a small chuckle gave way to silent, shaking laughter, tears rolling as he sank to the floor. "I'm sorry… I…"

The stammered apology wasn't very convincing.

Joe lunged toward him, waggling butter and fat encased fingers under his nose. "See! Crime scenes are less gory than this!"

Frank only laughed harder, shoving Joe away; but his sibling dodged him, ducking under an arm to smear gunk on Frank's nose.

Frank grabbed Joe's wrist, forcing his hand backward until the buttery slop landed on Joe's shirt.

Joe was laughing by now too, twisting out of the hold on his arm a split second too late to keep Frank from sweeping his legs out from under him. The pair landed in a heap, rolling across the highly polished granite floor, grappling in a tangle of limbs and slightly insane, post-stress mirth.

Frank eventually trapped his younger brother between the tiles and hand-crafted cherry cabinetry, but not before both of them were covered in butter, herbs, and the occasional crouton. He knelt, panting, one knee on either side of Joe's still scrabbling legs and one hand pressing each of his elbows to the floor. "Give up?"

Joe's chest heaved as he sought enough air to reply. "Don't need to… give up. I won."

Frank sat back, palms on his thighs. "How'd you figure that?"

"Tried to cover you in butter." Gasp. "Did." Gasp. "Won."

Frank's grin widened, a bizarre expression given the speckled goo coating his face. He rocked up onto his feet, hauling Joe with him. "So you let me pin you because your objective was achieved?"

Joe swiped at his forehead with his arm. "Exactly."

"You keep telling yourself that, bro."

"May as well. It's true." Joe cocked his head sideways at a hissing sound. "Ah, Frank?"

"Hmm?"

"Is that cranberry stuff supposed to be on fire?"

#####

#####

"Traffic. Lovely."

Fenton glanced over at his wife, fingers of his right hand gently tracing over her ear before tucking a strand of golden hair behind it. He wasn't thrilled with the delay either. "You ok, honey?"

Laura fidgeted as best she could in the leather seat of the rented SUV, trying to get more comfortable. "I'm ok; just ready to be at the hotel. I've been griping all week about wanting out of bed and now I can't wait to get back in one."

"I promise to tuck you into a king sized with the best view in the city within the hour, Mrs. Hardy."

She couldn't suppress a smile at the playful tone. "I believe I've heard those words before, Mr. Hardy."

"That's funny; I believe I've said them before." Fenton returned the smile, leaning over for a quick kiss. A honk from the car behind them signaled the return to moving traffic. "Hmm. Caught necking in the car like teenagers."

"We weren't teenagers that last time you said that."

"No, we weren't." A wistful tone snuck in at the memory. While Fenton and Laura had married in New York, they had spent their honeymoon night in Chicago on a flight lay over before catching a plane the next day to Kona. They'd arrived in early evening and Fenton had made his new bride the same promise. A king size bed with a phenomenal view of the city. They'd even devoted a handful of seconds to admiring said view. The bed got somewhat more of their attention.

"Maybe we'll see the city lights this time." Laura shifted again, her casts awkward regardless.

"I was just thinking the same thing." Fenton turned left, thankful when the traffic cleared a bit. "The boys have a surprise for us when we get to the hotel, though, if you can wait on that bed an hour or so."

"As long as I have a comfortable couch, I can do that. What kind of a surprise?"

"The Thanksgiving kind. I wouldn't have spoiled it for them but I want to make sure you're up to it."

"I'm fine, Fenton." Laura sounded mildly amused at her husband's hovering. "I'm not the first person to have a few broken bones, as you personally know. I'll be fine, and a little Thanksgiving sounds wonderful."

"As long as I don't have to starch my underwear."

Laura snorted. "I seriously doubt any starched underwear was ever involved!"

"That's not the way your brother tells it."

#####  
#####

Joseph McCullough turned off the key of his battered sedan, contentment settling over him the instant he pulled into the driveway of his childhood home. The second half of his childhood, anyway. Benjamin and Beth McCullough had adopted him and his younger sisters fifteen years earlier. The decade before that loomed more like a surreal nightmare rather than something he endured.

"This is it, Fen. Hop out."

Fenton Hardy stretched in the pint sized passenger seat, unfolding long legs and half falling out of the car onto a cobblestone driveway. The home before him was larger than the house he'd grown up in, a traditional stone style softened by a layer of snow and a plethora of glazed planters.

The young man grabbed his duffle from the trunk, slinging it over the shoulder of his wrinkled uniform. "You're sure your parents won't mind company for the holiday?"

"Nah. I talked to Mom three days ago and she was happy to have you come. She'd have been more upset if I'd left you alone on base. No one should eat Thanksgiving dinner in the chow hall." Joseph reached both arms skyward, popping the bones of his spine. "I'm glad to be out of that car."

Fenton nodded. His six foot two inch frame hadn't been remotely pleased in the compact car the last twelve hours; he couldn't imagine that Joseph's extra inch improved the situation any. "Hope your folks feel the same way now that my sister is coming as well."

"I told you already – Amy isn't going to make it in from college until Christmas. Mom will be thrilled to have two girls in the house again."

"Gertrude is six years older than me, Joe. That hardly makes her a girl."

Joseph shrugged. "That still puts her two years on the south side of thirty. That's a girl, as far as Mom and Dad are going to be concerned. I'll be twenty six in two weeks and they've barely accepted that I'm out of the cradle stage."

Fenton laughed out loud at the image of his muscle bound commanding officer in a cradle. "I'd pay to see that."

"Don't get any ideas, Hardy."

"Are you coming inside, or what?"

A new voice called out from the porch, teasing and somehow instantly intriguing. Fenton walked toward the house, abruptly stopping as a figure stepped into the circle of foggy light surrounding the lamppost.

A petite girl with a jumble of flaxen waves to her waist smiled up at him, eyes the color of warm summer skies contrasting with the glitter of snowflakes on amber lashes. She was ethereal in the twilight, the most beautiful person Fenton Hardy had ever seen.

The vision disappeared, engulfed in Joseph's arms as he grabbed her and swung her around.

"Let me breathe, you big oaf." Laughter gurgled out from somewhere in the hug.

"I love you, too, Laura." Joseph sat her down, waving Fenton onto the porch. "This is my baby sister, Laura. Now come in the house before we all freeze. Oh, and Fen? Close your mouth."

The remainder of the evening had passed in polite conversation, the usually gregarious Fenton instantly comfortable in with the elder McCulloughs, but taking some time to find his voice with Laura.

"Joseph tells us you're the best of his Special Forces candidates, Fenton." Benjamin smiled, genuinely liking his son's friend even as he sized up the youth's obvious interest in his daughter.

"That's very kind of him to say, sir, but the whole class is excellent. Joe's a good teacher."

"I'm glad you came for Thanksgiving. When's your sister arriving again?"

"About two o'clock tomorrow." Fenton nodded toward Mrs. McCullough. "Gertrude is a terrific cook and she made me promise to offer her services with dinner, ma'am, if you'd like some help. We don't want to be a bother."

"It's no bother. When Joseph told us your parents were out of the country, I couldn't see the sense in you and Gertrude spending the holiday alone. She's welcome to help, but she certainly doesn't have to."

Thanksgiving dinner the following evening went off without a hitch, Gertrude having arrived as planned, a neat bundle of pies her welcome travel companion. She seemed to enjoy the McCullough household hospitality and insisted on helping her brother and Joseph prepare to return to the military base the two days later.

"I'll load the car if you want another cup of coffee, sleepy head."

Fenton moaned. How could anybody accuse him of being a bed head when it was only five o'clock in the morning? "Yeah. Fine."

Twenty minutes later they were ready, both having taken a rapid shower and thrown together a breakfast for the road. Joseph zipped his duffle with a perplexed frown, carrying it to the door with a stiff gait.

"Um, Fenton?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you do this laundry yesterday?"

"Nope, Gertrude did. Why?"

"Uh, is there any chance she might have starched and ironed my underwear?" Joseph blushed slightly.

A short bark of laughter invaded the early morning quiet. "I told you not to put those in there – she'll do it every time. I learned to hide mine years ago and wash them myself. On the other hand, at least we know she likes you."

"How do figure that? She starched my underwear, corrected my posture at dinner, lectured me about drinking out of the juice carton, and refolded all the blankets I packed because I was leaving lines in them that weren't parallel."

"See, all the proof you need." Fenton drained his coffee mug and refilled it for the trip. "Ready."

"Hey." Laura stood at the foot of the stairs, long braid trailing over one shoulder, blinking sleepily. Her white cotton pajama pants were covered in small scarlet flowers, while a larger blossom covered the entire tank style shirt.

Joseph weighed and discarded any number of comments, deciding that protective big brother mode could wait. A little. "Consider yourself honored, Fenton. Laura out of bed before ten is an historic event."

Fenton waited until the door closed behind Joseph, leaving him alone with Laura. The opportunity was perfect; if only he had some clue what to say.

"I'm glad you came." Laura retreated onto the lowest step, making it easier to look the handsome young soldier in the eye.

"Me too." Fenton swallowed noisily, surprised at himself. Normally he was somewhat of a flirt.

"Are you, maybe, coming back at Christmas?"

He regretfully shook his head. "My parents will be home by then, so if I can get any leave, I'm expected there."

"Oh."

"Maybe I could drive up here after, though?" Fenton tried not to sound too hopeful.

"I'd like that."

"Me too."

"Get your butt out here or I'll starch your shorts and you can walk back to North Carolina in them, Hardy." A charming bellow sounded from the driveway.

Fenton gave a rueful chuckle. "Guess that's my cue. Goodbye, Laura."

"Bye."

He took one step away then whirled about, wrapping strong arms around the slim girl before him, eager lips finding hers in an amazing kiss. A kiss that left him breathless and weak in the knees.

"Lt. Hardy?"

Fenton took a moment to register the query from the top of the stairs, completely unaware of anything in the world but Laura.

"Lt. Hardy?"

He disentangled himself, reality returning abruptly. "Ah, yes sir. Good morning, sir. I was um…"

"Relax, Fenton. I was twenty two once, too." Benjamin squelched a smile, forcibly maintaining a stern countenance. "But Laura is nineteen, and I believe my son was ready to leave?"

"Yes. We were just leaving. Right now. Right."

"Good then." Ben clapped the young man on the shoulder, propelling him through the door. Flicking a glance at his daughter's rather besotted expression, he dropped his voice to a whisper. "I'm not opposed, Hardy, but slow it down. And don't make her cry."

The older McCullough returned to the house, leaving a bewildered Fenton in the driveway. Now if only Joseph would let him off as easy…

#####

#####

The recollection faded as Fenton pulled into the hotel's valet parking circle, walking around the vehicle to open Laura's door. The valet emerged from the building with a wheelchair, but the detective waved him off, scooping his wife into his arms.

Laura giggled, snuggling into his chest bridal style. "You can't carry me all the way through the lobby." The protest was half-hearted at best.

"Actually, I can." Fenton remained in excellent shape, a necessity for his job. "Besides, any excuse to whisk a beautiful woman to a hotel for a week should be pounced on."

"I'm not too beautiful at the moment." Laura gestured at the cast on both arm and leg, and a smattering a bruises still speckling her face.

"You're as beautiful today as that first night on the porch. You always will be to me." He readjusted the arm beneath her knees to open the door to their suite.

And froze.

To the right of the entry, a burgundy leather sofa sprawled beneath a grouping of exquisite paintings, the seating area completed with a trio of brocade chairs and tapestry ottoman. Venetian plaster covered the walls in an almost iridescent champagne hue, and a pair of cherry doors presumably led to the bedrooms. A granite fireplace dominated the corner and a huge window formed the entire posterior wall. It was lovely. It also wasn't the problem.

To the left, the plush cream carpet gave way to finely patterned granite tile in warm earthy colors, a perfect complement to a modern cherry kitchen with a sleek granite counter and leather covered stools. Or at least Fenton and Laura thought that's what it looked like. It was a bit difficult to tell.

Dry croutons coated the floor in an indoor accumulation of hail, while the tiles and cabinets seemed to be encased in fine layer of buttery slime. Discarded scraps of vegetables and eggshells scattered the counters. Sugar granules crunched beneath their feet all the way to the small foyer and random puddles of water dotted the kitchen. A fine trail of smoke emanated from a sauce pan in Frank's hand, eluding the stream of water Joe was currently squirting there with the hand held sprayer from the sink. Both of their sons were laughing hysterically and looked like they were entrants in a greased pig contest – as the pig.

Frank noticed their entry first, still rapidly shifting the steaming pot from one hand to the other to keep his palm from scorching. He elbowed Joe in the ribs, inadvertently sending the errant water stream to the ceiling.

"Uh, surprise? We can explain…"

 _ **THE END**_

Author's note:

Chronologically, this story takes place about about five months before Coming of Age, which will start posting late tonight.

And finally, my profound thanks to T.W., the young man that is the real Joseph McCullough. He is the adopted son of one of my closest friends, a close friend of my son, and I've spent a lot of time with him over the years. The events of his life inspired this story and he was gracious enough to allow me to tell his tale and tweak it where I would. And yes, he really did pull off a mantle, smash an antique clock, and conk himself in the head while visiting with the family that ultimately became his. His life before he came to them was exactly what this story implies and I have the utmost admiration for his ability to overcome that and grow into to a fine young man brave enough to take that greatest risk – trust.

Thank you.


End file.
